'-'/give tAe/e Books
\-fpr the founding of a, Co%egei mtfdgiGoloitijV1

• T^LH«¥JM]I¥Ig]^Sflir¥«

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Gift of 1906.

THE BROSS LIBRARY
VOLUME III

THE BROSS PRIZE . . . 1905
THE PROBLEM OF
THE OLD TESTAMENT
CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE
TO RECENT CRITICISM

BY
JAMES ORR, D.D.
PROFESSOR OF APOLOGBTICS AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY
UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW *

"Nubecula est, quae cito evaneseeV

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
NEW YORK  1906

TO
THE PRESIDENT, TRUSTEES, AND FACULTY
OF
LAKE FOREST COLLEGE
2Hjra Uolume ta (grateMlg 30el3icateti
BY
THE AUTHOR

THE BROSS FOUNDATION
In 1879, the late William Bross of Chicago, lieutenant-
governor of Illinois in 1866-1870, desiring to make some
memorial of his son, Nathaniel Bross, who had died in
1856, entered into an agreement with the "Trustees of
Lake Forest University," whereby there was finally trans
ferred to the said Trustees the sum of Forty Thousand
Dollars, the income of which was to accumulate in per
petuity for successive periods of ten years, at compound
interest, the accumulations of one decade to be spent in
the following decade, for the purpose of stimulating the
production of the best books or treatises " on the connec
tion, relation, and mutual bearing of any practical science,
or history of our race, or the facts in any department of
knowledge, with and upon the Christian Religion."
In his deed of gift the founder had in view " the religion
of the Bible, composed of the Old and New Testaments of our
Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, as commonly received in the
Presbyterian and other evangelical churches." His object
was " to call out the best efforts of the highest talent and the
ripest scholarship of the world, to illustrate from science, or
any department of knowledge, and to demonstrate, the divine
origin and authority of the Christian Scriptures; and, fur
ther, to show how both Science and Revelation coincide, and
to prove the existence, the providence, or any or all of the at
tributes of the one living and true God, infinite, eternal, and
unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice,
goodness and truth." is.

x The Bross Foundation
At the close of the Trust Agreement, the donor ex
pressed the hope that, by means of this fund, the various
authors might, " every ten years, post up the science of the
world and show how it illustrates the truth of the Bible, and
the existence of Crod," and that thereby " the gospel of our
blessed Saviour, Jesus Christ, and the glories of His sacrifice
and plan of salvation," might be preached " to the end of
time." The books or treatises procured by either of the methods
described below are to be published as volumes of what is
to be known as "The Bross Library."
The gift thus contemplated in the original agreement of
1879 was finally consummated in 1890. The first decade
of the accumulations of interest having closed in 1900, the
Trustees of the Bross Fund began at that time the ad
ministration of this important trust.
The Trust Agreement prescribes two methods by which
the production of books of the above-mentioned character
is to be stimulated : —
A. The Trustees of the Bross Fund are empowered to
select able scholars, from time to time, to prepare books,
upon some theme within the terms of the Trust Agree
ment, that would "illustrate" or "demonstrate" the
Christian Religion, or any phase of it, to the times in
which we live.
Ordinarily, the authors of these books are requested to
deliver the substance of such books in the form of lectures
before Lake Forest College, and any of the general public
who may desire to attend them, such courses to be known
as The Bross Lectures.
In pursuance of the first method, two writers have
already been specially appointed : —

The Bross Foundation xi
(1) The Reverend President Francis Landey Patton,
D.D., LL.D., of the Princeton Theological Seminary,
whose lectures on " Obligatory Morality," delivered in
Lake Forest in May, 1903, are being revised and enlarged
by the author and will be published in due time by the
Trustees of the Bross Fund ;
(2) The Reverend Professor Marcus Dods, D.D., of
New College, Edinburgh, whose lectures on " The Bible :
Its Origin and Nature," delivered in May, 1904, have
already been published as a volume of the Bross Library.
B. The second method for securing books for the Bross
Library is as follows : —
One or more premiums or prizes are to be offered dur
ing each decade, the competition for which was to be
thrown open to " the scientific men, the Christian philoso
phers and historians of all nations."
Accordingly, in 1902, a prize of Six Thousand Dollars
($6,000) was offered for the best book fulfilling any of
the purposes described in the foregoing extracts from the
Trust Agreement, the manuscripts to be presented on or
before June 1, 1905.
The following were appointed a Committee of Judges to
make the award: the Reverend George Trumbull Ladd,
D.D., LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, Yale Uni
versity; Alexander Thomas Ormond, Ph.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Philosophy, Princeton University, and the
Reverend George Frederick Wright, D.D., LL.D., Pro
fessor of the Harmony of Science and Revelation, Oberlin
College. The authorship of the various essays was not known
to the judges until after the award was made, the under
signed having been the custodian of .the sealed envelopes

xii The Bross Foundation
containing the names of the writers of the respective
manuscripts. The Committee of Judges has unanimously awarded the
Bross Prize of 1905 to the essay entitled " The Problem
of the Old Testament," which is now issued as Volume
III of the Bross Library.
The next Bross prize will be offered about 1915, and
will be announced in due time by the Trustees of the Bross
Fund. The Trust Agreement requires that once in every thirty
or fifty years (according as the Trustees of the fund may
decide at the time) the entire sum of simple interest accu
mulated during the previous decade is to be offered as a
single premium or prize for a competition similar to the
one which has just been completed.
RICHARD D. HARLAN,
President of Lake Forest College.
Lake Forest, Illinois,
Noyember, 1905.

PREFACE

The thanks of the author are due, in the first place,
to the Trustees of Lake Forest College, and to the ad
judicators acting on their behalf, who, in their generosity,
have awarded to this book the munificent prize at their dis
posal from the Bross Fund. It is right, however, to say,
that, although the present volume has been so fortunate as to
obtain the Bross Prize, it was not for the Bross Prize, or
with thought or knowledge of the same, that the book was
written. But for a long-standing promise to the English
publishers, it is doubtful if it ever would have been written
at all. The book was sent to press in the beginning of
this year, and the delay in its publication has been due
principally to the afterthought of submitting it in proof to
the judgment of the Bross Prize arbiters. The author is
deeply sensible of the courtesy of the publishers in so
readily meeting his wishes in this matter at inconvenience
to themselves. The book in one Bense is not new, but represents, as
will probably be evident from its perusal, the gathering
up of thought, reading, and formation of opinion on its
subject, going as far back as the days of the old Colenso
and Samuel Davidson controversies, and of the appearance
of Graf's work in 1866, when the author's interest in these
xlii

xiv PREFACE
questions was first thoroughly aroused — an interest which
haB never since flagged. Much water had flowed under
the bridge in the interval, and the author entered on the
task of putting his book into shape with many misgivings.
Still, now that the work is done, and apart altogether from
the material reward which has so unexpectedly come to
him, he does not regret having undertaken it. The time
is past when the discussion of Old Testament questions
can be left wholly to professional experts, who represent
one, but only one, of the many points of view necessary to
be taken into account in considering this subject. The
conclusions of the critics, of whom personally the author
would speak only with respect, force themselves on every
one's attention, and it is a matter, no longer of choice, but
of necessity, to pay regard to their opinions. Especially
for one engaged in the teaching of theology, in whatever
department, it is absolutely indispensable to possess some
acquaintance with the methods and results of Old Testa
ment study, and to try to come to some understanding with
himself in regard to the theories of Old Testament religion
and literature which he finds prevailing around him. The
judgment of such an one may not be of the highest value ;
but, if it is his own, and has been reached at the cost of
prolonged thought and study, the expression of it, and the
exhibition of the grounds on which it rests, may not be
without help to others working their way through similar
perplexities. The standpoint of the present book can be readily
understood from a survey of the Table of Contents, or from
reading the sketch of its scope at the close of the first
chapter. Those who expect to find in it a wholesale
denunciation of critics and of everything that savours of

PREFACE xv
criticism will be disappointed. The author is not of the
opinion that much good is accomplished by the violent and
indiscriminating assaults on the critics sometimes indulged
in by very excellent men. The case which the critics
present must be met in a calm, temperate, and scholarly
way, if it is to be dealt with to the satisfaction of thought
ful Christian people. On the other hand, those who come
to the book expecting to find in it agreement with the
methods and resultB of the reigning critical schools will
probably be not less disappointed. The author has here
no option. With the best will in the world to accept
whatever new light criticism may have to throw on the
structure and meaning of the Old Testament, he has to
confess that his study of the critical developments — now
for over thirty years — has increasingly convinced him that,
while Biblical students are indebted to the critics, and to
Old Testament science generally, for valuable help, the
Graf-Wellhausen hypothesis now in the ascendant is,
neither in its methods nor in its results, entitled to the un
qualified confidence often claimed for it. He is persuaded,
on the contrary, that it rests on erroneous fundamental
principles, is eaten through with subjectivity, and must,
if carried out to its logical issues — to which, happily,
very many do not carry it — prove subversive of our
Christian faith, and of such belief in, and use of, the
Bible as alone can meet the needs of the living Church.
Only, if this is to be shown, it must, as far as one's
knowledge enables him to do it, be done thoroughly,
and with due regard for all really critically-ascertained
facts. Being designed specially for an English-reading public,
the book is purposely cast in a form as little technical aa

xvi PREFACE
the nature of the subject permits. Hebrew words and minute
philological discussions are, as a rule, avoided, and where
English translations of foreign books exist, references are
usually made to these. The customary form of the divine
name, " Jehovah," is retained ; but in quotations authors
have been allowed to use their own various spellings of the
name. If, throughout, a seemingly disproportionate space
is given to German writers, this is simply due to the
fact that at least nine-tenths of the "Higher-Critical''
theories now in vogue had their origin and elaboration in
Germany, and in Britain and America are largely of the
nature of importations. One early learns that, if these
theories are to be dealt with satisfactorily, it can only be
by going at first hand to the sources — tapping the stream,
as it were, at the fountain-head. At the same time the
Indexes will show that representative writers of English-
speaking countries, of different schools, have by no means
been overlooked.
In so immense a field, it is hardly necessary to say that
no attempt whatever is made at a complete or exhaustive
treatment of Old Testament questions. That would have
been impossible in the space, even had the author possessed
the knowledge or ability qualifying him to undertake it.
Some aspects of the Old Testament — the Wisdom Litera
ture, for example — have had to be left altogether untouched.
The idea has been, as far as practicable, to concentrate
atteution on really crucial points, and to make these
the pivots on which the discussion of other questions turns
(see Appendix to first chapter). In handling so large a
mass of material, and copying and re-copying so many
references, it is inevitable that, with the utmost care, slips
and mistakes should occur. The author can only hope

PREFACE xvii
that these will not prove in any case to be of such magni
tude as seriously to affect the main argument.
Since the book went to press in the spring, no small
amount of literature has appeared to which it would be
interesting to refer. Allusion may here only be made to
the appearance of a valuable work by Professor W. Lotz, of
Erlangen, entitled Das Alte Testament und die Wissenschaft,
with which, in parts, the treatment in these pages may be
compared. It would be endless to specify articles and
pamphlets. Professor JameB Robertson, of Glasgow, has
contributed to the May and June numbers of the periodical
Good Words two interesting papers on " The Beginnings
of Hebrew History and Religion"; and Professor R. D4*
Wilson, of Princeton, has completed in July and October
his valuable articles on "Royal Titles" in the Princeton
Theological Beview. The October article is specially devoted
to the statements of Dr. Driver on the use of royal titles
in the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Three papers
by Professors Driver and Kirkpatrick on The Higher
Criticism, have been published, aiming at the removal of
misconceptions. In his Biblische Theologie des Alien Testa
ments Stade has re-stated his views on the religion of Israel
in more systematic form.
With these remarks, the book must be left to its own
mission. The author entertains no over-sanguine expecta
tions as to its effect on general conviction, but he is not
without hope that it may at least rouse to reflection some
who have given too easy an assent to current theories,
simply because they are the theories of the hour. He has
no wish to be ultra-dogmatic on any point. Time may
not justify all his conclusions ; but he has the strong per
suasion that, when the day for summing-up comes — if
b

xviii PREFACE
ever such arrives — the positions into which men's minds
will be disposed to settle will be found much nearer those
advocated in these pages than they will be to those of the
advanced Wellhausen school. The future will show.
The volume, it will be observed, has been amply fitted
with Tables of Contents, Indexes, and cross-references in
footnotea These should make the task of consulting its
pages comparatively easy, and should lighten somewhat
the impression of abstruseness created by certain of its
chapters. The author's thanks are specially due to the
Rev. J. M. Wilson, B.D., Highbury, London, and to George
Hunter, Esq., Glasgow, for valuable aid in the correction
of the proofs.
Glasgow, October 190ft.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
INTEODUOTOBY : THE PROBLEM STATED.— Pp. 1-S4.
What is the Old Testament t
Problem of the Old Testament : relation to criticism.
I. The Problem Twofold: Religious and Litebaby.
How are we to conceive of the religion ! natural or supernatural 1
How are we to conceive of the literature 1 age, authorship, trust
worthiness, etc.
Dependence in part of the second question on the first.
Popular view of the subject : distrust of " Higher Criticism."
Need for discrimination of issues.
The question not simply one between "Higher Critics" and
"Non-Higher Critics."
Deeper issue : the supernatural in the religion of Israel.
Division on this subject among critics.
Gains from critical movement.
II. The Fundamental Issue : Attitude to the Sufebnatubal,
Place of religion of Israel among historical religions.
Its claim to a special divine origin.
Kuenen and the "modern " school of criticism.
Israel's religion "nothing less, but also nothing mora," than
other religions.
Denial of supernatural in history and prophecy.
"Natural development" alone recognised.
Petitio principii involved in this position.
Facts of religion and history to be impartially examined.
Importance of true guiding principles.
A case of competing interpretations of Old Testament,
Ultimate test in fitness to meet the facts.

xx CONTENTS
III. The Litebabt Peoblem : Its Dependence on the Religious.
Interest of Christian faith in literary questions.
Belief in supernatural not necessarily bound up with questions of
dates and authorship.
Yet close connection between critical premises and critical results.
Critical theories have scientific value.
Yet mainly elaborated in rationalistic workshops.
Rationalistic "set" of German criticism.
Rationalistic basis of Wellhausen theory.
Its temporary popularity.
Improbability that a theory evolved from this basis can be
adequate for Christian faith.
In this connection dates, etc., not unimportant.
Dates often determined by critical assumptions : used to subvert
credibility.
Need of recasting of theories on believing principles.
IV. Attitude op Criticism to "Revelation."
Argument that contrast of supernatural and non-supernatural is
less important than it seems.
Professor W. R. Smith on high views of the " modern " school.
Defects of this view of Israel's religion.
Ambiguity in use of word " revelation."
Admission of "providential guidance."
"Revelation" in sense of psychological development.
Dilemma here that revelation leads to belief in supernatural,
and in direct communications of God to man.
Christ the touchstone of the supernatural for faith.
That view of revelation alone adequate which culminates in
His Person and redemption.
Sketch of course of subsequent discussion.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
Crucial Points in the Critical Theory. — Pp. 25, 26.

CHAPTER II
THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM ITS OWN POINT OF
VIEW.— Pp. 27-51.
Place of Old Testament in the economy of revelation. Tendency of purely
critical study to obscure view of this.
Right of Old Testament to be heard for itself.
I. The Oboanio Unity of the Book.
The Bible a unity.
Many books, but structurally one.

CONTENTS xxi
Illustration by contrast : " book-religions."
No unity in ethnic Scriptures (Koran, etc.).
The Bible has an organic character.
Marked by plan, purpose, progress.
Unity grows out of religion and history.
II. Fulfilment of the Old Testament in the New.
The Bible in two divisions.
The second the counterpart and completion of the first
The " Servant " of Isa. liii. : fulfilment in Christ.
Religion of Israel a religion of hope.
Anticipation of better economy.
The Messianic idea.
New Testament realises hopes and promises of the Old.
This relation inward and vital.
III. Teleologioal Character of the History.
History dominated by idea of purpose.
Sketch of development — primitive and patriarchal history.
Mosaic and later history.
History viewed retrogressively.
Uniqueness of this.
IV. Unique Ideas of the Religion.
The uniqueness generally acknowledged.
1. Negative side — absence of features found in other religions.
Magic, nature-superstitions, etc.
8. Positive side — fundamental ideas of Israel's religion.
(1) Monotheism of religion.
Peculiar to Israel.
Opposite tendency in other religions.
Underlies the whole of Old Testament.
(2) Developing purpose of grace.
Sin and grace in Scripture.
The Bible a "history of redemption."
Found in no other religion.
(8) Indissoluble relation between religion and morality.
General relations of religion and morality.
Religion of Israel dominated by this idea.
God as the Holy One.
Union of religion and morality in psalms and prophets.
Such a religion not man-originated.
V. Claim to an Origin in Revelation.
Modern substitution of psychology for revelation.
Biblical point of view— "Thus saith Jehovah."
Revelation of God in act and word.
The Israelite conscious of being possessor and guardian of a special
revelation.

xxii CONTENTS
Objection — all religions claim similar origin.
Reply — No religion has a story of its beginnings like Israel'*.
(1) Monotheism not of natural origin.
Only three monotheistic religions in world : Judaism, Chris
tianity, and Mohammedanism derived from other two.
(2) Ethical character of Israel's religion not of natural origin.
Contrast with Egyptian religion.
Claim to revelation justified.
VI. Revelation in Relation to its Record.
If revelation there, questions about date and placing of books of
minor importance.
If revelation given — reasonable to expect a record.
Character of Bible shows it is such a record.
Qualities of Scripture a proof of inspiration.
Bible realises its own tests of inspiration.
VII. Relation of the Old Testament to Christ.
Christ the goal of Old Testament revelation.
The illuminating light in its study.

CHAPTER III
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM— I. THE
HISTORY : ARGUMENT FROM CRITICAL PREMISES. —
Pp. 53-81.
Does scientific criticism overthrow the history of the Old Testament 1
Provisional adoption of critical standpoint.
I. Critical Assault on Old Testament History.
Views of radical critics : denial of historicity.
Patriarchal and Mosaic periods.
Later historical books.
Moderate critical positions.
Grounds of denial.
Late date of history.
Rudimentary state of belief.
Contradictions, etc.
II. Ignoring of Teleologioal Element in the Histobt.
Non-recognition by radical school.
Recognition by believing critics.
Explanation of appearance of teleology —
Reading back of prophetic ideas.

CONTENTS xxiii
Refutation of this : —
1. Teleologioal element not on surface of history, but enters into
its substance.
2. Where is the mind capable of inventing it I
III. Credibility of History on Premises of Critical Theory.
Critical theory of the Hexateuch.
The Documents JEDP.
Consideration confined to J and E.
Theories of age (ninth or eighth century), authorship, relations,
etc.
1. Main result from this theory —
J and E antecede written propheoy.
Wavering of critics.
8. Inferences: —
(1) Teleologies! character an integral part of the tradition.
Not due to prophetic manipulation.
(2) Tradition has already developed and settled form.
Contrast with popular legend.
(3) Critical theory assumes two histories.
Independent, yet in substance resembling and parallel.
Hence (1) check on free invention ; (2) proof of settled
character of tradition.
IV. Stepping-stones to Eablibb Date of Tradition.
1. Tradition must antedate division of kingdom.
Age of Solomon, David, Samuel.
2. Critical dates do not fix terminus a quo.
Critical support for earlier date.
No good reason for putting late.
8. Hypothesis of earlier records.
(1) Support from history of language.
J and E from "golden age of literature.™
Necessity of previous cultivation.
(2) Preceding development of literature.
Results as to J and E.
(3) Critical admission of earlier records.
V. Corroborative Evidence of Early Date of Sources.
1. New light cast by discovery of age and use of writing, and
development of literature.
Revolution in ideas : Babylonia, Egypt, Canaan, etc.
2. Corroborations of (fata of history.
Genesis xiv. ; Genesis x. ; life of Joseph, etc.
8. Witness of Old Testament to early use of writing in Israel.

xxiv CONTENTS

CHAPTER IV
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM— I. THE
HISTORY : COUNTER-THEORIES TESTED.— Pp. 88-116.
Critical reconstruction of the history.
I. Rival Constructions as Dependent on theib Pbesuppositions
The critical presupposition and its results.
Naturalness of the Biblical view on its own presuppositions.
Meaning of "history" in the Bible.
Patriarchal history as carefully preserved tradition.
II. Theory that Patbiabohs were not Individuals, but "Peb-
SONIFICATIONS."
Prevalence of this theory : its grounds.
1. Names of the patriarchs not individual, but tribal.
This only partially true : examination of names.
Difficulties in case of Abraham.
2. Forms of Scripture genealogies.
Ethnographic genealogies (Genesis x.).
But family genealogies also.
No biographies of "Mizraim," "Ludim," etc.
8. Assumed law of growth of societies.
Views of Stade, etc.
Lack of proof of this "law."
Maine on Patriarchal theory of Society.
Peculiarity of call and destiny in Israel.
Patriarchs both persons and progenitors.
III. Witness of Israel's National Consciousness : The Patriarchs.
Argument as to religion postponed.
Dillmann on patriarchal religion.
Minimising of later testimony to patriarchs.
1. Application of critical method to prophetic passages.
H. P. Smith ; Wellhausen.
Disproof of their assertions.
2. Positive evidence in later literature—
The prophets.
The JE history.
Book of Deuteronomy.
IV. Moses and the Exodus.
1. Belittling of testimony to Moses as lawgiver.
Carpenter on prophetio references.
Moses in Book of Deuteronomy.
In JE history.
History to be taken as a hole.

CONTENTS xxv
2. The Exodus and Red Sea deliverance.
If ever happened, impossible should be forgotten.
Indelibility of national recollection.
Testimony of literature.
Song of Miriam ; historical books ; prophets.
Kautzsch on historicity of Exodus.
No tenable rival theory.
Unexplained how Israelites did leave Egypt.
" Escape " hypothesis impossible.
V. Internal Character of Narratives a Guarantee fob His
toricity.
Value of internal evidence of truthfulness.
Application to patriarchal history.
1. Credibility of narratives as a whole.
Dr. Driver's testimony.
Sobriety and sparingness of miracle in Genesis.
Contrast with period of Exodus.
2. Unity of picture of patriarchs in different sources.
Wellhausen's statements on this point.
Interdependence of sources.
Illustrations from narrative.
8. Character of Abraham a guarantee of historicity.
General grandeur of character.
His place in revelation.
Contrast with later fables.
VI. Fidelity of Narratives to Patriarchal Conditions.
Primitive character and simplicity of ideas.
1. History moves in primitive conditions.
Free life of patriarchs : primitive ideas.
Alleged mirroring of later political events.
Gunkel in disproof of this.
2. Primitive character of religious ideas and forms of worship.
Prayer and sacrifice ; burnt offering, etc.
Objective character of revelation.
The thepphany : "Angel of Jehovah."
Undeveloped character of doctrine of angels.
But "Angel of Jehovah" peculiar form of revelation in
earliest age.
Identification with Jehovah.
8. Idea of God appropriate to this stage of revelation.
The names of God in Genesis : El, Elohim, El Shaddai.
Contrast with name "Jehovah."
Use of Jehovah in Genesis.
The divine character and attributes.
Absence of terms "holy," "righteousness," "wrath," etc.

xxvi CONTENTS
4. Ethical conceptions of the patriarchs mark lower stage.
Marriage of sisters, etc.
Weaker sense of sin.
Contrast with prophets.
Advance in Book of Exodus in both religious and ethical
conceptions.
Grander scale of history in this book ; deeper ideas, etc
Greatness of Mosaic era.
Vividness of narratives.
Unity of representation of Moses and Aaron.

CHAPTER V
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED RY CRITICISM— II. RE
LIGION AND INSTITUTIONS: GOD AND HIS WORSHIP.—
Pp. 117-147.
Critical treatment of problems of religion.
I. Fault of the Critical Method.
Rejection of history we have, and substitution for it of imaginary
history.
E.g., Budde on Yahweh ; his admissions.
A priori rejection of Second Commandment.
Failure of criticism to abide by its own assumptions.
E.g., Jephthah ; David ; golden calf, eto.
More systematic inquiry.
II. Early Israelitish Monotheism.
1. Biblical representation — Israel from first monotheistic.
Inability of people to maintain this standpoint.
Belief in inferior gods.
Religion itself based on belief in one true God.
Genesis a monotheistic book.
Jehovah in Exodus a supreme God.
This not contradicted by " anthropomorphisms."
2. Views of evolutionary critical school.
Early monotheism rejected.
Religion begins with polytheism.
Yahweh a tribal God.
Theories of early religion in Israel : —
Moloch theory (Kuenen).
Polydemonism (Kautzsch).
Kenite theory (Budde).
Superstitious elements ; fetishism, eto.

CONTENTS xxvii
Grounds of critical theory : —
(1) Old Testament conception of God too elevated for patriarchal
and Mosaic times.
Alleged dependence of monotheism on ideas of the world
and of humanity.
Fallacy of this ; Israel early in contact with high civilisa
tions.
High views of God in older religions.
Views of other Old Testament scholars.
Witness of Decalogue.
(2) Examination of Eenite theory.
Yahweh a new god to Israel.
The storm-god of Sinai
Moses among Kenites — Song of Deborah.
Reply : Jehovah the God of the fathers.
Yahweh not a Kenite deity.
Not proved by Song of Deborah.
Stade's admissions of universality of Yahweh.
Sublimity of Song of Deborah.
(8) Proof from special passages : —
Jephthah's words on Chemosh —
Not conclusive for Israelitish view.
David "driven" from Jehovah's inheritance — Well-
hausen, etc.
No idea of serving gods other than Jehovah anywhere.
Comparison with Deuteronomy.
"Ethical monotheism " not a creation of the prophets.
Prophets all assume knowledge of one true God.
III. Early Israelitish Worship.
Theories of fetishism, animism, ancestor-worship, eto.
Contrast with Biblical view.
Patriarchal and Mosaic periods.
Bible on face of it does not support these theories.
Examination of particulars : —
1. Theory of sanctuaries.
Biblical view of origin of sanctuaries (Bethel, eto.).
Critical view — old Canaanitish shrines.
Patriarchal legends an aftergrowth.
Proof only by rejection of Biblical histories.
2. Ancestor-worship.
Stade's theory and " proofs."
"Graves" of patriarchs, etc.
Mourning customs, etc.
Budde and Addis on ancestor-worship.
Baselessness of theory.

xxviii CONTENTS
8. Animism — sacred wells and trees.
" Wells " in patriarchal history— but for water.
" Trees "—but God not thought of as in them.
W. R. Smith on sacred trees.
"Asherahs" — but idolatrous.
4. Fetishism and stone-worship.
"Ark" alleged to be fetish.
Sacred stones in ark (meteorites).
H. P. Smith, etc.
Sacred "pillars" (maccebas).
Jacob at Bethel.
No class of stones called " Bethels."
God not thought of as in stone.
Memorial pillars (Dillmann, etc.).
The prophets and maccebas.
5. Totemism.
Alleged belief in descent of tribes from animals.
Animal names, etc.
Bearings on sacrifice.
Theory not generally accepted.
6. Human sacrifice.
Connection with Moloch theory.
Other evidences secondary.
Case of daughter of Jephthah.
Interpretation of incident.
No proof of general custom.
Attitude of prophets to human sacrifice.
IV, Image-Worship in Israel.
Second Commandment denied to Moses.
Positive assertion of worship of Yahweh by images.
Alleged antiquity of bull- worship.
Examination of evidence : —
1. No evidence in older history.
Not in Genesis — case of " teraphim."
Not in Mosaic history —
Golden calf a breach of covenant.
2. State of religion under Judges.
Lapse into Canaanitish idolatry.
Little evidence of image- worship of Jehovah.
Case of Gideon —
Not proved that his "ephod" was an image of Jehovah.
No proof that it was image of a bull.
No proof that bull-worship was general.
Case of Micah and Danites.
Real instance of idolatrous worship of Jehovah.
Not proof of rule in Israel.
Micah at first without images.

CONTENTS xxix
8. Calf-worship of Northern Kingdom.
Assumed revival of ancient usage.
But why need "revival " ?
Theory disproved by silence of earlier history.
No trace in age of Samuel or David.
Absence of image in temple.
Alleged absence of protest in prophets.
Strong protest in Hosea.
But also in Amos.
Elijah's conflict with " Baal- worship " — not with calves.
Incredibility of his approval of calf- worship.
Threatens Ahab with doom of Jeroboam.
Conclusion — Biblical view still valid.

CHAPTER VI
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM— II. RE
LIGION AND INSTITUTIONS : ARK, TABERNACLE, PRIEST
HOOD, ETC.— Pp. 149-190.
Dependence of criticism on view taken of laws and institutions.
I. General Position of Moses as Lawgiver.
Difficulty of critics on this point.
Name of Moses given to all laws, yet all laws withheld from him.
1. Relation of Moses to Decalogue and Book of Covenant.
Grounds of denial of Decalogue to Moses.
So-called second Decalogue in Ex. xxxiv.
Baselessness of this.
Decalogue gives probability to Mosaic origin of laws in Book
of Covenant.
Antecedent probability of legislation.
II. The Sacrificial System and Ritual Law.
Denial of belief in Mosaic or divine origin of sacrificial law before
exile.
1. Assertion that P writer ' ' knows nothing " of sacrifice before Moses.
2. Sacrifice in prophetic age not merely " traditional usage."
3. Prophetio denunciations of outward ritual.
Real meaning of these.
Recognition of divine sanction of ordinances.
4. Admissions of Kuenen, Smend, etc.
Incredible that, in settling constitution, Moses should give no
religious ordinances.
Special institutions.

xxx CONTENTS
III. The Saored Ark.
Critical theory of the ark ; contradicted by facts.
1. The making of the ark.
An old ark admitted : alleged JE account of making.
Agreement of Deut. x. 1-5 with P account.
2. Subsequent history of the ark.
Notices regarding name, structure, uses.
These not discrepant with P.
The ark and Levites : H. P. Smith.
3. Relation of ark to Solomonic temple.
Solomonic ark was the old ark.
P's description, if taken from Solomonic ark, would agree with
old ark.
Neglect of ark in pre-Davidio time : lesson of this.
IV. The Tabernacle.
Initial objection to splendour of tabernacle.
1 . Admission that tabernacle of some kind existed.
Nature of tabernacle : Grafs views.
Alleged distinction from tabernacle of the law.
The " tent of meeting " in JE — Ex. xxxiii: 7.
Supposed contrasts.
2. Place of the tabernacle.
View that JE tent outside of camp ; P tabernacle in midst of
camp.
Examination of cases : Num. xi., xii.
Indications that JE tabernacle also within the camp.
3. Use of the tabernacle.
View that JE tent a place of revelation ; P tabernacle a place of
worship.
But (1) P tabernacle also a place of revelation.
Resemblances of JE and P tabernacles.
(2) And JE tabernacle a place of worship.
Notices till time of Judges.
The ark at Shiloh : centre for "all Israel."
Objection that Shiloh sanctuary a " temple "—still, however, a
"tent."
Also that Samuel slept in chamber of ark.
Groundlessness of this.
The Levitical dues.
Subsequent fortunes of tabernacle.
V. The Unity of the Sanctuary.
Wellhausen on centralisation of cultus in Deuteronomy.
Alleged relation to Ex. xx. 24 (JE) and to P.
Need of more careful scrutiny of facts.

CONTENTS xxxi
1. The fundamental law in Ex. xx. 24.
Professor W. R. Smith on freedom of worship.
Law does not give unrestricted liberty.
"Recording" of God's name covers cases of special revelation
(Gideon, Manoah, etc.).
2. Unity of sanctuary the ideal for Israel from beginning.
" An altar" in fundamental law.
One "house of God " in Book of Covenant.
One sanctuary in wilderness.
The altar Ed in Josh. xxii.
Worship at one centre in Judges.
8. Deuteronomy does not demand immediate realisation of the law
of unity.
Postponement of full realisation till land had " rest."
Settled state first with David and Solomon.
4. Allowance necessary for irregularities in times of unsettlement
and disorganisation.
Period of confusion speoially after capture of ark — "a religious
interregnum."
Samuel's relation to worship.
Spirit of law above its letter.
5. Religious attitude to "high places."
Paucity of early notices.
Worship till Solomon mainly to Jehovah.
Idolatry in later reigns.
Attitude of prophets to "high places."
VI. The Aaronic Priesthood and the Levites.
A Levitical priesthood attested, but further questions.
1. Was the priesthood Aaronic !
Wellhausen's theorisings on tribe of Levi.
Denial of Aaronic " high priest " before exile.
Testimony to Aaronic priesthood — Aaron to Eli.
" High priest" seldom in Priestly Code.
2. Priests and Levites.
Alleged conflict of PC with Deuteronomy and early practice.
A relative contrast granted.
(1) Examination of phraseology.
" The priests the Levites " in earlier history.
"Priests and Levites" not in law.
" Levites " used also in wide sense in P.
" Sons of Aaron " in PC not a universal designation, and
disappears later.
Change in designation with choice of tribe of Levi.
Nomenclature follows fact.
(2) Functions of priesthood attributed to whole tribe of Levi
in Deuteronomy.
Even Urim and Thummim of priesthood.

xxxii CONTENTS
Nevertheless traces of distinction of orders.
All "Levites" not "priests."
Aaronic priesthood recognised.
Priests and Levites not identical in Deut. xviii. 1-8.
Terms for service applicable to both classes.
(3) Position of Levites in Deuteronomy and in history.
Alleged contradiction with PC.
Legal provision for Levites, however, not ignored in
Deuteronomy.
Needy condition of Levites in accordance with situation before
settled conditions.
Levites in later times.
(4) Scant notices of Levites in history.
Samuel as Levite.
Wellhausen and W. R. Smith on Samuel as "priest."
Groundlessness of this view — (1) the ephod ; (2) the mantle.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
Priests and Levites (Dr. Driver on "ministering" and "standing"
before Jehovah).— Pp. 191, 192.

CHAPTER VII
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITICAL
HYPOTHESIS: I. THE JE ANALYSIS.— Pp. 193-239.
New problem — validity of critical theory of documents.
Criticism brings to light real phenomena.
I. Stadia of the Critical Development.
1. Astruc : Elohistic and Jehovistic documents.
2. Eichhorn : literary peculiarities in documents.
3. De Wette : problem of Deuteronomy.
4. Hupfeld : separation of 2nd Elohist.
5. The Graf revolution : the law post-exilian.
Theories of relation of sources.
Fragmentary — supplementary — documentary.
II. Difficulties of the Critical Hypothesis in General.
Points of agreement among critics.
Wide divergences in detail.
Kautzsch and Kuenen on lack of agreement.
Justification of doubts as to soundness of principles.

CONTENTS xxxiii
1. Conflicts of opinion in critical schools.
Hypothetical character of JEDP.
Lack of agreement as to dates, relations, priority.
2. Excessive multiplication of sources.
Serial Js, Es, Ps, Rs.
This a necessity of theory (Ptolemaic epicycles).
But creates insoluble complications.
8. Resolution ofJEP, etc., into "schools."
Impossibility of longer insisting on minute criteria.
Effect on questions of date.
Contradicted by unity of book.
III. Special Problems of JE : Place of Origin and Extent.
1. Place of origin, with bearings on age.
E Ephraimitic {interest in sacred places, etc.) — J Judsean.
Grounds inadequate for this distinction.
(1) J also placed by leading critics in Northern Israel.
(2) False assumptions of motive.
Gunkel and Kuenen deny party-tendency.
(8) Narratives do not bear out preference for North and South.
J interested in Northern localities ; E in South.
Critics on " tone " of E.
(4) Strained interpretation of incidents.
Bethel, Beersheba, eto.
2. Extent of documents.
Admitted difficulty in distinction after Genesis.
Are J and E found in Judges, Samuel, etc. ?
Case of Joshua : Pentateuch or Hexateuch ?
Cornill, etc., on distinctness of Joshua.
Differences in language, structure, etc.
Wellhausen, etc., deny J in Joshua.
Difficulties with E and P.
Stylistic difficulties.
Samaritan Joshua : balance against Hexateuch,
IV. Are J and E Two ob One? Difficulties of Separation.
1. No proof that E ever was distinct document.
Intermittent, fragmentary character of E.
2. Unity supported by thoroughly parallel character of narratives
Critical testimonies on parallelism.
3. Stylistic resemblance of J and E.
Dr. Driver on resemblance.
4. Fusion and interrelation of narratives.
Union " bewilderingly close."
Narratives closely interconnected.
The "omission" theory.

xxxiv CONTENTS
6. Violent expedients needed to make hypothesis workable.
Place and functions of "redactor."
Peculiarities of redactor.
V. The Problem o» the Divine Names in J and E.
1. Ascertainment of facts.
These less simple than supposed.
(1) "Elohim" in admitted J passages.
(2) "Jehovah" in E passages.
(8) Kuenen's admissions on discrimination.
2. Explanation of facts.
(1) Theory of distinct sources loaded with difficulties.
. Older sources not denied, but these not J and E.
(2) Hypothesis of discrimination : has true elements in it.
Cessation of " Elohim " in E with Exodus iii.
Difficulties of critical explanation.
Revelation of Jehovah in Exodus vi. — true meaning of
passage.
P avoids "Jehovah" till Exodus vi. ; two stages of
revelation.
Explanation inadequate for JE.
(3) Possibility of change in text.
Examples of this ; E's usage after Exodus iii.
Double names in Genesis ii., iii.
Usage of LXX in Genesis.
Outstanding case : phenomena of Psalter.
Elostermann's theory of Jehovistic and Elohistic recensions
of one work.
VI. Linguistic and other alleged Grounds for Separation.
Illusory character of these.
1. Linguistic peculiarities.
Typical cases examined.
2. Mode of representation in E.
The "dream" criterion —
Angel calling "out of heaven."
Partition tested by Gen. xxii. and Gen. xxviii. 10 ff.
Unity of narratives.
Significant use of divine names.
8. " Duplicate" narratives.
General principles affecting these.
Bethel — Joseph — Hagar, etc.
Test case : denial of wives by Abraham and Isaac
(1) Three narratives — two in J.
Critical disintegration processes.
(2) Use of divine names : exaggerations, eto.
Difficulties of analysis.

CONTENTS xxxv
(8) Differences in narratives.
Probably represent genuinely distinct traditions.
Abraham's action a result of settled policy.
Later narrative refers to earlier.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
The Historicity of the Book of Joshua.— JJj. 240-243.

CHAPTER VIII
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITICAL HY»-0
THESIS: THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY.— Pp. 2« -tf\
Place of Deuteronomy in critical theory.
I. State of the Question and General View.
Contents of Deuteronomy.
Critical theory of origin : age of Josiah.
Consequences of view of late date.
Doubts as to soundness of critical view—
From course of criticism itself.
From enormous difficulties of hypothesis.
II. Unity and Style of Deuteronomy,
1. Unity of thought and style in the book.
Allowance for redaction.
Older critics held "unity " as indubitable.
Critical disintegration of the book.
Conflicting views: Wellhausen, Kuenen, Carpentei c.
a "dissolving view."
Dr. Driver on unity of style.
2. Relation of style to that of other Pentateuch sources.
Delitzsch on style of Moses — " Jehovistic-Deuteronomic. '
Affinities with Deuteronomy in P (Lev. xxvi., etc.).
Affinities of Deuteronomy with JE.
Book of Covenant ; Genesis, etc.
Affinities with Deuteronomy in later books.
" Pre-Deuteronomic " passages.
Decrease of Deuteronomio influence as history advances
III. Difficulties of Critical Theory on Age and Origin
Presuppositions of criticism on date.
Relation to age of JE.
1. The finding of "the book of the law" in Josiah's reign.
Narrative of discovery.

xxxvi CONTENTS
(1) Plainly believed to be discovery of an old book.
All concerned believed book to be Mosaic.
Difficulties of opposite hypothesis.
(2) Theory of "fraud" in production of the book.
This the view of leading critics (Wellhausen, etc.).
Supposition morally condemnable and historically un
tenable.
(3) Assumed earlier date under Manasseh or Hezekiah.
Disadvantages of this view; guiding principle lost —
Kuenen's " fatal " objection.
(4) Did the book originate with prophets or priests T
Priests (Kuenen) ; prophets (Kautzsch, etc.).
Difficulties of both views.
2. Testimony of book to its own origin.
Apparently clear claim to Mosaic authorship.
Not whole Pentateuch.
But not code (chaps, xii.-xxvi.) only.
Theory of a "free reproduction" of written discourses of Moses
(Delitzsch, etc.).
Admissibility of this view.
But — Cui bono 1
If Moses wrote, a literary "double" not called for.
Literary capabilities of Moses.
Real ground of objection — belief in non-historicity of Mosaic
period.
3. Internal character of book.
Minimising of difficulties here.
Book and history do not fit each other.
(1) Josiah not moved primarily by idea of centralising
worship.
His reformation directed against idolatry.
Deuteronomy not aimed directly at " high places."
Even in Deuteronomy centralisation of worship not an
all-dominating idea.
(2) Problem of miscellaneous laws in a book composed to
effect reform of worship.
Incongruity and irrelevancy of many of the laws.
Israel an unbroken unity.
Obsolete and unsuitable laws.
Deuteronomic law of death for idolatry not put in force
by Josiah.
Theory of Levites as "disestablished priests."
IV. Critical Reasons for Late Dating of the Book : Question
of Validity of these.
Real ground with many : altered view of Moses and his age.
Importance of question of date : results for JE and P.

CONTENTS

XXXVll

1. Extensive concessions of critical writers as to Mosaic basis.
Oettli and Driver on relation to older laws.
Only " real innovation " the centralisation of worship (Reuss).
This ihe fundamental pillar of hypothesis.
Results of previous investigations on the point.
2. Subordinate importance of other arguments.
(1) Alleged discrepancies in laws.
Former results on Aaronic priesthood and Levites.
Reproduction of laws of Book of Covenant.
Freedom in reiteration and enforcement.
Tithe-laws as illustration of discrepancies.
Apparent conflict with Numbers.
But law of Numbers also recognised.
Possible lines of solution.
Difficulties of critical alternative.
Minor discrepancies.
(2) Alleged historical discrepancies.
Inconsistencies in book itself : critical explanations of these.
Admitted general fidelity to JE history.
Is P also used ? Critical denial.
Instances proving a certain use.
Examples of " contradictions " : —
Appointment of judges : sending the spies.
Ground and time of prohibition to Moses to enter Canaan.
Joshua and the mission of the spies.
Dathan and Abiram (Korah omitted).
Aaron's death.
Cities of refuge.
(3) Expressions thought to imply post-Mosaic date.
E.g., " Other side of Jordan " (standpoint western).
Double usage of phrase in Deuteronomy and Numbers.
Summary of Conclusions on Deuteronomy.
CHAPTER IX
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITICAL
HYPOTHESIS : THE PRIESTLY WRITING.
I. THE CODE.— Pp. 285-329.
The Graf revolution in Pentateuchal theory.
I. The Graf-Wellhausen Theory of the Priestly Code.
The Levitical legislation exilian or later.
Everything in code not absolutely new.
But now for first time written, and largely developed.
Thrown back into Mosaic age.
Idea of code from Ezekiel.
History invented to suit the code.

xxxviii CONTENTS
Introduction of Pentateuoh by Ezra in 444 B.C.
Differences in school as to extent of Ezra's law.
Theory of later developments, eto.
Hypothesis loaded with difficulties.
II. Initial Inobedibilities of the Theoby.
1. The moral issue involved.
Deliberate design of passing off code as Mosaic.
Not a work of mere " codification."
Alleged custom of ascribing all laws to Moses.
Comparison with medieval Isidorian Decretals.
Inconsistent with moral standard of prophets, eto.
2. The historical incredibility.
Assuming the law concocted, how did it get accepted !
Narrative of reading of law in Neh. viii.
The transaction bond fide.
No suspicion of a new origin of law.
Classes most affected made no protest.
Parts of law already in operation at first return (priests and
Levites, etc.).
3. Unsuitdbility of code to situation.
Not adapted to the conditions of the return.
Its Mosaic dress — tabernacle, wilderness, etc.
Deviations by Nehemiah from Levitical rules.
Unsuitability of the tithe-laws, etc.
A temple-organisation at return, of which oode knows nothing.
III. Argument from Silence in its Bearings on the Code.
Positive grounds of theory : lines of reply.
Precarious character of argument from silence.
1. Inconclusiveness of argument shown from critical admissions.
Allowed that materially a large part of the legislation in
operation before the exile.
Driver on "pre-existing temple usage."
Critical distinction of " praxis " and " code."
If praxis existed consistently with history, so might code.
Improbability that no written law existed regulating practice.
2. Wide scope of this " pre-existing usage " : bearings on law.
How much presupposed in existence of temple, priesthood,
cultus, sacrifices, feasts, etc.
Wellhausen's large admissions on cultus.
Silence of history on " feasts," eto.
8. Theory tested in case of Levites.
Most post-exilian books as silent about Levites as ^re-exilian.
E.g., II. Isaiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi, Psalter.
Silence even in Leviticus (one exception).

CONTENTS

XXXIX

Silence in New Testament.
Scant allusion in Gospels and Acts : silenoe in Hebrews.
Application to day of atonement.
Here alsojiosi-exilian books as silent as ^)re-exilian.
Earliest notice in Josephus.
No notice in rest of New Testament : yet observance proved
by Hebrews.
IV. Proof of Earlier Existence of Priestly Legislation.
Testimony of history to institutions (Chap. VI.).
1. Relation of Ezekiel to priestly laws.
Ezekiel's sketch of restored temple.
Theory that Priestly Code based on Ezekiel.
Proof that Ezekiel presupposes priestly legislation.
Saturated with ideas of law.
"Statutes and judgments."
2. Nearer determmation — priority of "Law of Holiness" (Lev.
xvii-xxvi.) to Ezekiel.
Admitted relation of this law to Ezekiel.
Theory of Graf, etc., that Ezekiel was author of law.
Theory of Kuenen that law " imitates " Ezekiel.
Only satisfactory view — that Ezekiel uses the law.
Dr. Driver's agreement with this view.
Conclusions : (1) Priestly law before the exile ; (2) Large vista
opened of extent of written law.
8. Levitical laws presupposed in Deuteronomy.
Denial of this by critics.
Dr. Driver's admissions on the subject.
Views of Dillmann, Riehm, Kittel, etc., on dependence of
Deuteronomy on priestly laws.
Leading examples in proof of such dependence.
But Deuteronomy, on other hand, not reflected in Priestly Code.
Latter therefore older.
V. Difficulties of the Critical Theory of Institutions.
1. Ezekiel-theory of origin of distinction of priests and Levites.
Levites degraded idolatrous priests (Ezek. xliv.).
Untenable assumptions of this theory.
Not proved from Ezekiel : —
(1) Ezekiel presupposes older law in his denunciations of ministry
of uncircumcised.
(2) His co&e purely ideal : its degradation never carried out.
(3) Inconsistency of Ezekiel's regulations with those of Priestly
Code.
(4) The people received the latter as in accordance with their own
recollections and traditions.
2. Critical theory of other institutions.
E.g., (1) The feasts of the law.

xl CONTENTS
The three feasts recognised from the beginning as national
feasts.
Passover from first connected with Exodus.
Agricultural view of passover in Lev. xxiii. — a priestly law.
Wellhausen's theory of passover.
Historical notices of feasts.
(2) Sin and trespass offerings.
Ezekiel presupposes these as well-known.
References in Ps. xl. and in prophets and history.
(3) The altar of incense.
8. Incidental references to law in history and prophets.
'> Critical date of Joel : Joel's prophecy implies law.
But not more than Isaiah and other prophets.
Cultus and feasts in Isaiah, etc.
Written laws assumed : Hos. viii. 12.
Previous proofs from history.
Unique character of Levitical law.
VI. Time of Origin of the Levitical Law.
If not post-exilian — when ?
Mediating view of Dillmann, Nbldeke (age of kings), etc.
Untenableness of this view : " passive existence " of laws.
Service of Wellhausen theory in eliminating this view.
No halting-place between a post-exilian and an early origin.
This involves substantially Mosaic origin of laws.
Redaction of code probably early.

CHAPTER X
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITICAL HYPO
THESIS : THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. THE DOCUMENT.-
Pp. 331-377.
Critical stages in history of opinion on this document.
Compass of writing — age — independence — v/nUy.
I. Is there a Priestly Writing in Distinction from JE!
The P style distinct from that of JE.
Its peculiarities.
Limitations of this difference.
Vocabulary — other alleged marks of P.
II. Question of Unity and Independence of Priestly Writing.
1. P formerly regarded as a connected narrative from a single pen.
Change with rise of idea of "school," etc.
Later writers " imitate " earlier.
Effects on conception of unity of P.

CONTENTS xli
Different relations of P to JE : —
(1) in Genesis, (2) in middle books, (3) in Joshua.
2. Is P an independent document t
Denial by Graf — logical grounds of his denial.
Independence disproved by character of writing.
(1) The structure of P adverse to view of independence.
The alleged " completeness " of the history.
This not borne out by facts.
Document scanty, fragmentary, unequal.
Its narratives presuppose JE.
Large hiatuses in lives of patriarchs.
Theory of "omissions" ; its inadequacy.
(2) Relations to JE in subject-matter disprove independence.
Parts lacking in P supplied in JE, and vice versa.
P narrative throughout parallel with JE.
Kuenen and Wellhausen on this.
Onus of proof on those who affirm independence.
III. Textual Interrelations of the Priestly Writing and JE.
Interrelation of P and JE inseparably close throughout.
1. P and JE narratives in Genesis.
(1) Stories of creation : these not contradictory, but com
plementary.
Close textual relation.
The Priestly Writer and the fall.
(2) Story of the flood : narratives again complementary.
Relation to Babylonian legend.
In separation each narrative incomplete.
Alleged discrepancy on duration of flood.
Discrepancy arises from the partition.
Alleged ignorance of flood in J1.
Noah's three sons : critical substitution of Canaan for Ham,
(8) Table of nations : critical difficulties.
Inseparability of parts.
(4) Lives of patriarchs : Abraham, Gen. xii., xiii.
Gen. xiv. ; peculiarities of narrative.
Hagar episode : Gen. xvi.
Gen. xix. 29.
Isaac and Jacob : fragmentary character of narratives.
Book a unity : divided, the unity disappears.
2. Mosaic period.
(1) Early chapters of Exodus : inseparability of P and JE.
Narratives of plagues : critical distinctions untenable.
(2) Wilderness incidents : two examples —
Mission of spies : unity of narrative.
Korah's rebellion : a double movement, but narratives in
separable.

xlii CONTENTS
IV. Alleged Inconsistencies and Historical Incredibilities of P.
Importance of critical admission that P knew JE.
1. Disproves supposed ignorance in P of fall, patriarchal sacrifices,
errors of patriarchs, etc.
2. Duplicate narratives — usually not really such.
Jacob at Bethel ; revelations to Moses, etc.
3. Historical incredibilities : a chief ground of objection.
Critical reliance on Colenso's "demonstrations."
Defects of Colenso's treatment.
(1) Colenso's difficulties about tabernacle and priests in the
wilderness.
Absurdity of his calculations.
(2) Difficulties of the Exodus :
Increase of Israel, etc.
Colenso creates difficulties by a grotesque literalism.
The departure from Rameses.
(8) Special examples : —
Hezron and Hamul in Gen. xlvi.
The list of the Descent.
The number of the first-born.
Key to the solution.
V. General Results : Mosaicity of the Pentateuch.
To what point has the argument conducted S
(1) Not to view that Moses wrote the Pentateuch in present
shape and extent ;
(2) But to view of the unity, essential Mosaicity, and relative
antiquity of the Pentateu6h.
1. Support given to this view in tradition : crucial points : —
(1) Old Testament ascribes the three codes to Moses.
Two said to be written by him.
(2) Both Deuteronomy and Priestly Writing presuppose the JE
history.
(8) Deuteronomy received as Mosaic in time of Josiah.
(4) Whole Pentateuch received as Mosaic in time of Ezra.
(5) Samaritans received Pentateuch as Mosaic.
2. Critical results support Mosaicity of Pentateuch.
(1) No good reason for separating J and E, or giving them late date.
(2) Deuteronomy not of Josianic origin, but its discourses
genuinely Mosaic.
(8) Priestly writing; not post-exilian; but legislation and history
early.
8. Proofs of early date of Book of Genesis.
Later references to Genesis.
4. Early knowledge and wide diffusion of writing favours the
Mosaicity of the Pentateuch.
Writing known and practised by Hebrews in Mosaic age.
This implies earlier use : possibility of pre-Mosaio documents.

CONTENTS xliii
5. Mode of composition best conceived of as collaboration or co
operation.
How Pentateuch may have grown to present form.
Would seldom be copied as a whole.
The "law of Jehovah "in pious circles.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
The Later Historical Books.— Pp. 878-891.
I. Bearings of critical theory of the Pentateuch on later books.
P history — Deuteronomy— JE.
II. Results for later books of opposite view.
Delitzsch on Joshua.
Deuteronomic revisions.
III. Critical treatment of later books.
General charaoter of later histories.
1. Book of Judges.
Critical analysis of this book (Kautzsch, eto.).
The Deuteronomic framework.
Consciousness of unity in Israel.
Religious and moral ideas.
Time of origin.
2. Books of Samuel.
Diversities in analysis.
Kautzsch, Driver, H. P. Smith, Lohr.
Alleged diversity of representation.
Alleged partisanship of sources.
Mode and time of origin.
3. Books of Chronicles.
Critical assaults on credibility.
Deepest ground — Levitical representation.
View of wholesale invention untenable.
Theory of older sources (Dillmann, Klostermann, etc.).
Corroborations of history.
Question of the numbers.
General result.

CHAPTER XI
ARCHEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT.— Pp. 893-480.
Archaeology as controlling criticism and history.
I. General Bearings of Modern Archaeological Discovery,
Triumphs of archaeology in recovery of ancient civilisations.
Singular degree of illumination on Bible.
Effects on attitude of critics.

xliv CONTENTS
Alteration of perspective in relation to Israel.
Antiquity of letters and arts in Egypt and Babylonia.
Babylonian libraries.
Early explorations at Nineveh.
Palace of Sargon — a Biblical confirmation.
Library of Assurbanipal.
II. Babylonian Legends and the Early Chapters of Genesis.
Does Genesis preserve oldest traditions of the race ?
Reasons for looking for answer to Babylonia.
Glance first at facts, then at explanation.
1. Table of nations in Genesis x.
Threefold testimony about Babylonia.
(1) Babel before Nineveh ; (2) Assyria colonised from Baby
lonia ; (3) Founders of Babylonian civilisation not
Semites.
Monumental corroboration of these positions, formerly disputed.
Statement that Elam is "the son of Shem."
Recent confirmation from discovery.
Distribution of mankind from plain of Shinar.
Great antiquity of Babylonian civilisation.
Tendency to derive other civilisations from this — Egypt,
China, etc.
2. Creation and deluge stories.
Discovery of creation tablets — comparison and contrast with
Genesis i.
Polytheistio and mythological character ; features of resem
blance.
The sabbath — paradise and fall.
The deluge tablets.
Debased by polytheism, but marked resemblance to Biblical
account.
S. Explanations of connection.
(1) Theory of borrowing from Babylonia.
Babylonian legends adopted and purified.
When was this borrowing ?
In exile ? reasons against this.
In time of Ahaz or Solomon 1
In time after settlement in Canaan ?
Pervasion of Canaan by Babylonian influences.
Difficulties of "borrowing" theory.
Brought from Ur of Chaldees 1
Objection from absence of early mention ; reply to this.
(2) Theory of cognate relationship.
Radically different character of stories supports this view.
Theory of cognate relationship favoured by many scholars
(Kittel, Hommel, Oettli, etc.).
Genesis preserves older and purer version of original tradition.

CONTENTS xlv
(8) Babylonian monotheism — "Babel and Bible."
Groundwork of truth in this view.
Supposed occurrence of name Jehovah (JAU).
Israelitish religion not borrowed from Babylonia.
III. The Abrahamic Age — The Chedorlaomer Expedition.
Patriarchs bore personal names.
Importance of age of Abraham.
The Hammurabi Code.
Expedition of Chedorlaomer (Genesis xiv.).
Strange character of story.
Denial of its historicity (Nbldeke, Wellhausen, etc.).
Singular corroborations from modern discovery.
The Elamitic supremacy ; names of kings ; relation to Palestine ;
Uru-Salim, etc.
Slighting of evidence by critics.
Midrash theory of Genesis xiv.
In reality accurate knowledge of remote times and bona fides of
writer thoroughly established.
Defence of narrative by critics.
IV. Joseph in Egypt.
Transition with Joseph to Egypt.
Admitted accuracy of picture of Egyptian life and customs.
Points formerly challenged established from monuments.
Egyptian manners ; descent into Egypt, etc.
Tale of two brothers.
Bearings on place and time of origin of narrative.
Must have originated on Egyptian soil.
Objection from proper names not valid.
V. The Mosaic Period — Three Great Discoveries.
Main periods in history of Egypt.
Old Empire : Menes as myth.
Petrie's discovery of Menes and of first two dynasties.
Middle Empire : Joseph and Shepherd Kings.
New Empire: Israel and Exodus to be sought for in eighteenth
or nineteenth dynasty.
Theories of Exodus : Rameses II. and Meneptah.
Recent discoveries bearing on Mosaic period.
1. Finding of the mummies of the Pharaohs (1881, 1898).
Recovery of all the great Pharaohs.
2. Discovery of Tel el-Amarna tablets.
Correspondence of Amenophis in. and Amenophis IV. (c
1400 b.c).
Language and writing Babylonian.
Letters from Palestine.

xlvi CONTENTS
8. Discovery of name "Israel" on monument of Meneptah —
supposed Pharaoh of Exodus.
Difficulty arising from this : Israel already in Palestine.
Earlier traces of tribes in Palestine.
Need of modification of view.
VI. Israel and the Exodus.
Was the Exodus under nineteenth dynasty t
The chronological difficulty : —
Too short interval till Solomon ; too long from Abraham.
Biblical statements : Exodus placed about 1450 B.C.
Suitability of conditions of this time (eighteenth dynasty).
The " store-cities " not decisive.
Reign of Thothmes in. ; on this view the oppressor.
Picture of brickmakers.
Career of Hatasu : "Pharaoh's daughter " ?
Problem of the Khabiri of Tel el-Amarna tablets.
Their conquest of Canaan.
Tendenoy to identify them with Hebrews.
VII. Empire of the Hittites — Period of the Kings.
1. The Hittites — early Biblical notices.
Existence of empire denied.
Egyptian and Assyrian confirmations.
Discovery of Hittite monuments.
Hieroglyphic and origin of Hittites.
2. Period of kings.
Nearly all points of contact receive corroboration.
Assyrian and Hebrew chronology.
Instances in history — Shishak's invasion ; Mesha ; Jehu j
Tiglath-Pileser ; fall of Samaria ; Sennacherib, eto.
Manasseh and credibility of Chronicles.
VIII. The Book of Daniel.
Daniel put in age of Maccabees.
Theory of an older basis — historical and prophetical.
Disproof of objections to historicity.
Greek name of instruments.
Discovery of early date and wide range of Greek culture.
Character of Nebuchadnezzar.
Belshazzar now proved historical.
The capture of Babylon.
Not discrepant with Daniel.
" Babylonian Chronicle " : stages in taking of Babylon.
Final capture : Belshazzar slain.
Question of " Darius the Mede."

CONTENTS xlvii
CHAPTER XII
PSALMS AND PROPHETS : THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF
REVELATION.— Pp. 431-478.
Psalms and prophets the soul of Old Testament revelation.
Part I
David and the Psalter
Value of psalms independent of their dates.
Yet dates important in history of revelation.
I. Theory of the Post-Exilian Origin of the Psalter.
Post-exilian origin of psalms a dogma of Wellhausen School.
Welllmusen's estimate of the psalms.
1. Theory is not and cannot be proved.
There are post-exilian, possibly Maccabsean, psalms.
No proof that most, or all, of the psalms are post-exilian.
The theory conflicts with tradition.
2. Post-exilian period mostly a blank to our knowledge.
Opening for groundless theorising.
8. Age not productive of literature.
No record of itself.
Return from captivity an incentive to psalm-composition.
But bulk of psalms show no post-exilian marks.
Many psalms demand an earlier date.
Psalms about king, etc.
4. Traditional connection of psalms with David.
Presumption in favour of pre-exilian psalms.
Positive evidences of pre-exilian psalmody.
Temple " singers " at return.
References to temple praise.
" Songs of Zion " ; quotations, etc.
Ascription of psalms to David in titles.
Chronicler traces temple singing and music to David.
II. The Historical Position of David as Psalmist.
Critical view of David : untrue to history.
1. David's career surveyed : —
(1) As young man : early piety and skill.
(2) At Saul's Court : behaviour irreproachable.
(3) As exile : relations to his men ; mode of life ; relations
with Saul, etc.
(4) As king : services to country and religion ; foreign
conquests ; project of temple and promise.
Blots on life and reign : Bathsheba.
Estimate of character.

xlviii CONTENTS
2. Abundant material and motive for psalm-composition.
View of David as model for effeminate frivolity.
A " sportful " muse.
Davidic psalms : genuineness of Ps. xviii.
If this genuine, doubtless many others.
Views of Ewald, Hitzig, Bleek, Delitzsoh, etc.
Probably number of Davidic psalms not small.
Value of titles of Books I and II.
III. Collection of the Psalms and Place in Canon.
Probable main periods of pre-exilian psalm-composition.
David : Jehoshaphat : Hezekiah.
Separate collections of psalms : Davidic, Korahite, etc.
Later psalms : division into books.
Date of collections and of close of Canon.
Testimony of : —
1. Books of Maccabees.
2. Septuagint translation (before 130 b.o. ; probably a good
deal earlier).
Meaning of titles forgotten.
3. Ecclesiasticus (implies Canon before 200 B.C.).
4. Books of Chronicles : Canon apparently completed ; implies
pre-exilian psalmody.
5. Book of Jonah : use of earlier psalms.
6. Jeremiah : quotes Ps. i. (implies Davidic collection) ; thanks
giving formula.
7. Music of second temple an inheritance from first temple.
General result. Part II
The Predictive Element in Prophecy
Uniqueness of Hebrew prophecy.
Nature and development of prophecy.
Prophecy and genius : its supernatural side.
Tests of true prophecy.
I. Supernatural Prediction an Element in Prophecy.
Essence of prophecy wrongly placed in prediction.
Modern denial of predictive prophecy.
Prediction not mere deductions of prophets' own.
Inevitable that prediction should enter into prophecy.
Has to do with promise and warning.
With future of kingdom of God.
Distinction from heathen soothsaying.
II. Reality of Supernatural Prediction.
Failure of critics to eliminate prediction.
Examples from Wellhausen.

CONTENTS xlix
Abundance of prediction in prophetic writings.
The captivities, 70 weeks, etc.
Messianic prophecy ; Professor Flint quoted.
III. Human Conditioning of Prophecy: Canons of Interpreta
tion.
Psychological side of prophecy ; necessary limitations.
Contrast between prophecy of near and prophecy of remote events.
The former definite ; the latter necessarily more ideal in form
and character.
Bearings on interpretation : —
1. Prophecy of distant future presented in forms of present.
Symbol in prophecy.
2. Time-element in prophecy.
Certain fact is triumph ofkingdom of God ; steps to this hidden.
" Day of Jehovah " as background of every cris .s.
Events grouped in ideal, not temporal relations.
8. Conditional element in prophecy.
Jeremiah on this : examples.
Bearings on fulfilment of promises to Israel.
Bearings on New Testament Parousia.
Past III
THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION: MORAL DlF TICULTIES.
General recognition of progressiveness, but bearings not always
clear.
I. Nature and Origin of the Moral Difficulties.
Not progress in knowledge only.
Growth from lower morality to higher.
Elements of evil in lower stages —
Polygamy ; blood-revenge ; slavery, etc.
Exaggeration of moral difficulties : Deistical controversy.
Central difficulty : apparent implication of God in laws and com
mands which our consciences condemn.
II. Erroneous or Inadequate Solutions.
" Progressiveness" alone not a solution.
Denial of evil in lower stage not a solution.
Evolutionary theory.
Reality of good and evil must be upheld.
Critical solution — laws and commands attributed to God not really
His.
This a cutting of the knot, not a loosing of it.
Rolls burden on prophetic writers who endorse commands.
E.g., Deuteronomy and extermination of Canaanites ; revision
of Joshua.
d

1 CONTENTS
Tendency to undue lowering of morality of early Israel.
Professor Gray on non-recognition of obligations to GentileB.
Moral precepts of universal scope always recognised.
Lapses of individuals not measure of moral standards.
III. General Laws of Progressive Revelation.
Larger problem of God's general relation to evil of world.
1. Revelation must take up man where it finds him : results of this.
2. Revelation responsible only for new element it introduces, not for
everything associated with it in mind of recipient.
3. Revelation lays hold on better elements, in order by means of them
to overcome what is imperfect and evil.
Educative aspect of revelation.
Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac.
Cities of refuge and blood-revenge.
Laws of marriage ; polygamy and monogamy.
Restrictions of spirit of mercy ; Canaanites.
All through preparation for higher stage.
Higher stages of revelation conserve all elements of value in lower,
The Close
Culmination of progressive revelation in Christ.
Faith in Him essential to right view of Old Testament.
Bearings of Old Testament criticism on New Testament
Same principles and methods now being applied.
Crisis in view of Christ and New Testament.
Bearing of foregoing discussion on issue.

NOTES TO CHAPTERS

The Jewish Canon

Chapter I

Chapter II
The Bible and other Sacred Books
Mythology and History in the Old Testament
Inspiration and the Materials of the Record .

nan 481

484485
486

Chapter III

Critical Extravagances

Chapter IV
KSnig on the Personification Theory .
The Covenant with Israel
Theories of the Exodus
Patriarchal Chronology
Gunkel's Theory of Patriarchal History
The Name Jehovah in the Patriarchal Age
Chapter V
Early Ideas of God
Antiquity of the Name Jehovah
Professor W. R. Smith's Theory of Sacrifice
Saorifice of Children in Canaan
H. P. Smith on the Brazen Serpent .
Dillmann on Image-Worship . Chapter VI
Objections to Mosaic Origin of Decalogue
The Force of Ex. xx. 24
Freedom under the Law . .
The Genealogy of Zadok .
David's Sons as Priests , U

488

490491492
493
494495

496
497498499
500
501

503
503 504
504505

Iii

NOTES TO CHAPTERS

Chapter VII

rAoi

The Self-Confidence of Critics . . • •

507

Cornill's Decomposition of J . . . • •

508

The View of J and E as " Schools '' . . . .

509

Chapter VIII

The breaking up of Deuteronomy . . •

610

Deuteronomic and Priestly Styles ...»

511

Deuteronomy as Fronts Pia . . . • •

513

Oblivion of Charlemagne's Code . . • •

514

The Law of the King in Deut. xvii. ....

515

Minor Discrepancies in Laws . . . . •

515

Chapter IX

Kuenen's early Views of the Post-Exilian Theory . .

517

The Unity of the Law .....

518

Ezekiel and earlier Laws . . . . •

519

Quotations in Deuteronomy from JE and P . . .

520

Levites in Ezekiel ......

520

Alleged Contradictions in the Passover Laws . .

520

The Mediating View of the Priestly Code . . .

521

Chapter X

Klostermann on the Relation of JE and P . .

522

Colenso's Numerical Objections ....

522

Christ's Testimony to the Old Testament . .

523

The Samaritan Pentateuch .....

524

Early Hebrew Writing .....

525

Hypothesis in Criticism .....

526

The Idea of " Co-operation " in Critical History

527

State of the Hebrew Text .

527

Chapter XI

Ethnological Relations in Gen. x. .
529
Cognateness of Babylonian and Hebrew Traditions . .
530
Alleged " Midrash " Character of Gen. xiv. .
531
The Resurrection of Myths .....
532
The Identification of Rameses and Pithom . . .
533
Belshazzar and Babylon .....
534
Chapter XII
Critical Estimate of David .....
535
The Unity of Second Isaiah .
536
The Prophecies of Daniel .
536
Kuenen on Unfulfilled Prophecies . . . .
538
The Destruction of the Canaanites . . .
539
Indexes
541
CHAPTER I
Sntrotmctovg : Zbe problem Stated

"I have been obliged to bestow the greatest amount of labour on a
hitherto entirely unworked field, the investigation of the inner constitu
tion of the separate books of the Old Testament by the aid of the Higher
Criticism (a new name to no Humanist)." — Eichhorn.
" It is true that the present destructive proceedings in the department
of Old Testament criticism, which demand the construction of a new edifice,
are quite fitted to confuse consciences and to entangle a weak faith in all
kinds of temptation. If, however, we keep fast hold in this labyrinth of
the one truth, Christus vere resnrrexit, we have in our hands Ariadne's
thread to lead us out of it." — Delitzsch.
Wellhausen "has identified himself with that 'so-called criticism'
(Ewald's phraseology) which has 'given up Moses and so much that
is excellent besides,' and which leads on directly to the contemptuous
rejection of the Old Testament, if not also of the New (again, Ewald's
phraseology). " — Cheyne.
"Erroneous criticism cannot be corrected by dogmatic theology, but
only by a better, more searching, and less prejudiced criticism." — Ottlby.

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
When we speak of a problem of the Old Testament, what
do we mean ? What is the problem, and how does it arise ?
A consideration of these questions will form a suitable
introduction to the subsequent discussions.
It can hardly be necessary for us, in opening our inquiry,
to define what is meant by the Old Testament, though on
this point also, as between Protestants and Roman Catholics,
a few questions might arise. By the term is here under
stood, in brief, that collection of Scriptures which now
forms the first part of our ordinary Bibles,1 — which the Jews
technically divided into "the law, the prophets, and the
(holy) writings," z — which our Lord and His apostles spoke
of as " the Scriptures," * " the Holy Scriptures," * " the oracles
of God," 6 "the sacred writings," 6 and uniformly treated as the
"God-inspired" 7 and authoritative record of God's revelations
to, and dealings with, His ancient people.8 This yields a
first regulative position in our study. It may be laid down
as axiomatic that, whatever they may be for others, these
ancient Scriptures can never have less value for the Chris
tian Church than they had for the Church's Master — Christ
1 This excludes the Apocrypha. On the name itself Bishop Westcott
says : " The establishment of Christianity gave at once a distinct unity to
the former dispensation, and thus St. Paul could speak of the Jewish
Scriptures by the name which they have always retained since, as the ' Old
Testament ' or ' Covenant ' (2 Cor. iii. 14). ... At the close of the second
century the terms ' Old ' and ' New Testament ' were already in common
use." — The Bible in the Church, p. 5.
a Cf. Luke xxiv. 44 : "In the law of- Moses, and the prophets, and
the psalms."
* Matt. xxi. 42 ; Luke xxiv. 27. * Rom. i. 2.
» Rom. iii. 2. "2 Tim. iii 15.
' 2 Tim. iii. 16. Cf. 2 Pet. i. 21.
8 Matt. v. 18 ; xv. 3, 6 ; xxii. 29, 31, 32 ; Luke xxiv. 27 ; John x. 35,
etc. See Note A on the Jewish Canon. .
t

4 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATET)
Himself. Believing scholars of all standpoints may be
trusted to agree in this.1
But what is meant by the problem of the Old Testament ?
Naturally there are many problems, but our title indicates
that the problem we have now in view is that which arises
peculiarly from the course of recent criticism. That problem
will be found large and complex enough to occupy us in
this volume, and, as going to the root of a believing attitude
to the Scriptures of the Old Covenant, will probably be
allowed to be, for the present moment, the fundamental
and essential one. In this chapter we shall seek to convey
as clear an idea as we can of where we conceive the crux
of this Old Testament problem to lie, and shall indicate
generally the lines to be followed in the handling of it.
I. The Problem Twofold: Religious and Literary
The problem of the Old Testament, then, as it presses on
the Church from various sides at the present hour, may be
said to be twofold. First, and most fundamentally, the
question raised by it is — How are we to conceive of the
religion which the Old Testament embodies, and presents to
us in its successive stages, as respects its nature and origin ?
Is it a natural product of the development of the human
spirit, as scholars of the distinctively "modern" way of
thinking — Kuenen, Wellhausen, Stade, and the like8 —
allege ; or is it something more — a result of special, super
natural revelation to Israel, such as other nations did not
possess ? Then second, How are we to conceive of the
literature itself, or of the books which make up the Old
Testament, as respects their age, origin, mode of composition,
trustworthiness, and, generally, their connection with the
religion of which they are the monuments ?
At first sight it might seem as if the second of these
questions had no necessary relation to the first. Nothing,
it may be plausibly argued, depends, for the decision of
the supernatural origin of the religion, on whether the
1 Professor G. A. Smith says : "The Bible of the Jews in our Lord's time
was practically our Old Testament. For us its supreme sanction is that
which it derived from Christ Himself. . . . What was indispensable to
the Redeemer must always be indispensable to the redeemed." — Modern
Criticism, p. 11.
11 See below, pp. 12 ff.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 5
Pentateuch, as we have it, is from the pen of Moses, or is
made up of three or four documents, put together at a late
date; or at what period the Levitical law was finally
codified ; or whether the Book of Isaiah is the work of one,
or two, or of ten authors; or whether the Psalms are
pre-exilic, or post-exilic, in origin. Yet, as will be seen more
fully later,1 the dependence of the literary criticism on the
religious theory is really very close. For, if it be true,
as every fair mind must admit, that there are many
scholars who succeed, to their own satisfaction, in com
bining the acceptance of the main results of the critical
hypothesis of the Old Testament, even in its advanced form,
with firm belief in the reality of supernatural revelation
in Israel, and in the culmination of that revelation in
Christ ; it is equally true that, in the case of others, and
these pre-eminently, in Dr. Cheyne's phrase, " The Founders
of Criticism," the decisions arrived at on purely literary
questions, — the date of a psalm, e.g., the genuineness of a
passage, or the integrity of a book, — are largely controlled
by the view taken of the origin and course of development
of the religion; and, with a different theory on these
subjects, the judgments passed on the age, relations, and
historical value, of particular writings, would be different
also. This dependence of many of the conclusions of
criticism — by no means, of course, all — on the religious and
historical standpoint is practically admitted by Wellhausen,
when he declares that "it is only within the region of
religious antiquities and dominant religious ideas — the
region which Vatke in his Biblische Theologie had occupied
in its full breadth, and where the real battle first kindled —
that the controversy can be brought to a definite issue." 2
It is the perception of this fact and of its results which
affords the explanation of the very genuine disquiet and
perplexity which undeniably exist in large sections of the
Church as to the tendency and outcome of recent develop-
1 See below, pp. 16 ff.
a Hist, of Israel, p. 12. On Vatke, see below, p. 18. Graf also, the
pioneer of the new movement (see below, pp. 199 ff.), in his chief work, lays
stress on the fact that Pentateuch criticism was bound to remain j' unclear,
uncertain, and wavering," till it grasped the fact of the post-exilian origin
of the Levitical legislation. To attempt to decide its problems on mere
literary grounds was to move in a "vicious circle." — Geschicht. Bucher,
pp. 2, 3.

6 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
ments in Old Testament criticism. From the popular point
of view — the light in which the matter presents itself to
the average Christian mind — the problem of the Old
Testament is simply one of how we are to regard the Bible.
It is not merely, as the instinct of the humblest is quick
enough to perceive, t.bft ria.t,ps and authorf^'r of-hooka-that
are m_jikputeinthesecritical theories_i it is the whole
question of~lh¥~varuT~oTThe Bible as an inspired and
authoritative record of God's historical revelation to man-
/kind. Has God spoken, and does this book convey to us
His sure word for our salvation and guidance ? Have the
Scriptures of the Old Testament any longer the value for
us which they had for Christ and His disciples ? Or are
we to concede to the writers of the school above mentioned,
that, as the result of the critical discussions of the past
century, the historical foundations of Old Testament revela
tion have in the main been subverted? Must man's
changing and erring thoughts about God henceforth take
the place of God's words to man? Are the erewhile
" lively oracles " of God simply the fragmentary remains of
a literature to which no special quality of divineness
attaches, and is the supposed history of revelation largely
a piecing together of the myths, legends, and free inventions
of an age whose circle of ideas the modern spirit has
outgrown ? These and like questions, that extensive body
of opinion which arrogates to itself the title "modern"
would answer with an unhesitating " Yes " ; it need not
occasion surprise if the great mass of believing opinion in
the Church, on the other hand, meets such a challenge with
an emphatic " No."
It is to be admitted that the position of those who, at
the present time, occupy a believing standpoint, yet are
Btrongly repelled by the rationalism which seems to them
to inhere in much of the prevailing criticism, is one of
peculiar difficulty. On the one hand, they feel keenly the
seriousness of the issues by which they are confronted.
They seem to themselves to be called to give up, not only
those ideas of the Bible in which they have been nurtured,
and with which their tenderest associations are entwined,
but the view of the Bible that appears to them to arise
from an impartial study of its contents and claims. They
see the disintegrating processes which have wrought sucn

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 7
havoc, as they regard it, with the Old Testament, extended
to the New, and with Like results.1 On the other hand,
they are met by the assertion that practically all competent
scholarship — believing and unbelieving alike — is agreed in
the acceptance of those critical conclusions about the Old
Testament which so greatly disturb them. What, in the
" storm and stress " of this conflict and confusion of opinion,
are those who hold fast by the Bible as the Word of Life
for their souls to do? General assurances, such as are
sometimes given, that, when they have parted with the
greater part of what they have been accustomed to regard
as the historical substance of revelation, they will find the
Bible a diviner book to them than ever, do not yield the
desired comfort. Is it to be wondered at if, in their per- •
plexity and resentment, many who feel thus should round
on "Higher Criticism" itself, and uncompromisingly de
nounce it as the prolific parent of all the mischief — an
invention of the Evil One for the destruction of the
unwary ?
Nevertheless, this attitude of unreasoning denunciation
of what is called " Higher Criticism " is also manifestly an
extreme; and the problem we have to deal with, if it is
to be profitably discussed, requires a clearer discrimination
of issues. In particular, it cannot too early be recognised
that this is not, at bottom, a question simply, as is too
commonly assumed, between "Higher Critics" and "Non-
Higher Critics." Questions of criticism, indeed, enter
deeply — far more deeply, to our thinking, than many are
disposed to allow — into the dispute; but it is only to
confuse the issue, and is a gratuitous weakening of the
believing case, not to recognise that the real cleft goes
much deeper — viz., into a radical contrariety of view as
to the natural or supernatural origin of the religion of
Israel, and that on this fundamental issue those whom we
call "critics" are themselves sharply divided, and found
ranged in opposing camps. There are, one must own,
few outstanding scholars at the present day on the Con
tinent or in Britain — in America it is somewhat different —
1 As examples reference may be made to the articles of Schmiedel
in the Encye. Biblica, and to such works, among many others, as
0. Holtzmann's Life of Jesus, and Wernle's Beginnings of Christianity,
recently translated. Cf. below, p. 478.

8 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
who do not in greater or less degree accept conclusions
regarding the Old Testament of the kind ordinarily de
nominated critical ; x yet among the foremost are many whom
no one who understands their work would dream of classing
as other than believing, and defenders of revealed religion.
Such, among Continental scholars, recent or living, are
iDelitzsch, Riehm, Dillmann, Konig, Kittel, Kbhler, Strack,
Oettli, Westphal, Orelli; in Britain, Dr. Driver, the late
Dr. A. B. Davidson, Professor G. A. Smith, and many
others: all more or less " critics," hut all convinced upholders
nf supernatural revelation This is not a reason for un-
questionjng" acceptance of their opinions ; as critics it will
be found that they are far enough from agreeing among
themselves. But the attitude to criticism of so large a
body of believing scholars may at least suggest to those
disposed to form hasty judgments that there is here a very
real problem to be solved ; that the case is more complex
than perhaps they had imagined; that there are real
phenomena in the literary structure of the Old Testament,
for the explanation of which, in the judgment of many
able minds, the traditional view is not adequate, and foi
which they seem to themselves to find a more satisfactory
solution in some form or other of the critical hypothesis.2
1 This is true even of so cautious a scholar as Professor James
Robertson, of Glasgow, whose works, in a conservative spirit, have done
such excellent service. It is Dillmann, himself a pronounced critic, but
decided in his opposition to what he calls the " Hegel- Vatke " view of
religious development, who speaks of Professor Robertson's Early Religion
of Israel as "hitting the nail on the head" (Alttest. Theol. p. 59).
Yet, as will appear, the views of Professor Robertson, and those, say, of
Dr. Driver, on such subjects as the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, the
gradual growth of legislation, the origin of Deuteronomy, etc., are not in
principle so far apart as might appear, though Professor Robertson's results
are somewhat more positive, and the accent falls differently. Cf. Early
Religion, pp. 332 ff., 382, 420-27.
a An interesting example of how the leading results of criticism may be
accepted by a devout and intensely evangelical mind is furnished by the
Rev, G. H. C. Macgregor, a favourite teacher of the "Keswick" school.
See his tribute to Professor W. R. Smith in the Biography by his brother
(p. 100), and the frequent references to critical positions in his Messages
of the Old Testament, with Preface by Rev. ,F. B. Meyer. It is significant
also that the productions of critical writers of believing tendency, such as
Konig and Kittel, are now being translated and reproduced in conservative
quarters, in refutation of the theories of the more rationalistic school.
Cf. below, pp. 79, etc., on Kittel's pamphlet, Babylonian Excavations and
Early Bible History, published, with Preface by Dr. Wace, by the London
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

INTRODUCTORY : THE PROBLEM STATED 9
The truth is, and the fact has to be faced, that no one
who studies the Old Testament in the light of modern
knowledge can help being, to some extent, a "Higher
Critic," nor is it desirable he should. The name has un
fortunately come to be associated all but exclusively with
a method yielding a certain class of results; but it has
no necessary connection with these results. "Higher
Criticism," rightly understood, is simply the careful scrutiny,
on the principles which it is customary to apply to all
literature, of the actual phenomena of the Bible, with a
view to deduce from these such conclusions as may be
warranted regarding the age, authorship, mode of com
position, sources, etc., of the different books ; and everyone
who engages in such inquiries, with whatever aim, is a
"Higher Critic," and cannot help himself. The peculiar
distribution of the names of God in Genesis, e.g., is a
fact to be recognised, whatever account may be given of
it,1 and the collation and sifting of evidence, with a view
to the obtaining of a satisfactory explanation, is, so far, a
critical process. There is nothing in such scholarly examina
tion of the Bible, even though the result be to present some
things in a new light, which need alarm anyone. As the
world of nature presents a different aspect to the man
of science, still more to the metaphysician, from that which
it does to the common view of sense, yet is the same world ;
so the Bible may present a somewhat different aspect to
the eye of the trained critical scholar, yet is the same Bible,
for edification, devotion, and instruction in the way of
righteousness. That we may discharge our debt to criticism, even of
the rationalistic sort, once for all, let us acknowledge that,
with all its attendant evils, its course has been productive,
under the providence of God, of many benefits, which in
large measure counterbalance, if they do not outweigh, these
evils. Some of the positive advances in its course it will
be our business to notice hereafter.2 It is assuredly not
for nothing that, for more than a century, the light of the
best European scholarship has been keenly directed on every
page, verse, line, and even word, of the sacred record. Many
of the leaders of criticism, however defective in their
apprehension of the full truth of revelation, have been
1 See below, p. 196. 2 See below, Chap. VII. pp. 196 ff.

io INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
men of fine literary gifts, wide culture, acute critical faculty,
and genuine appreciation of the nobler elements in the
religious and ethical teaching of the prophets; and the
result of their labours, as everyone must own, has been,
in modern times, a wonderful freshening of interest in
the historical, poetical, and prophetical parts of the Old
Testament, and an immensely better understanding of its
textual meaning and historical setting. What student
of Old Testament history or prophecy, e.g., would willingly
part with the aid afforded by the works of Ewald ? *• What
most rabid opponent of criticism is not ready to own his
indebtedness, on the linguistic side, to that dry old
rationalist, Gesenius? There is a yet greater gain. It
is not too much to say that one direct result of the applica
tion of the strictest historical and critical methods to the
Old Testament has been to bring out, as never before, the
absolutely unique and marvellous character of the religion
of Israel.2 With the best will in the world to explain the
religious development of Israel out of natural factors, the
efforts of the critics have resulted, in the view of many
of themselves, in a magnificent demonstration of the
immense, and, on natural principles, inexplicable difference
between the religion of this obscure people and every
other.8 Some may regard this as a small result; to us
it presents itself as something for which to be devoutly
grateful IL The Fundamental Issue: Attitude to the
Supernatural
Still the deep cleft remains between what we have
called the believing and the unbelieving views of the Old
Testament, — between the view which admits, and the view
which denies, the properly supernatural element in the
history and religion of Israel, — and it is not in our power,
1 "Prom another side," wrote Principal John Cairns, " a great scholar
like Ewald redressed the unfairness of Schleiermacher to the Old Testament,
and, with many and great drawbacks of his own, asserted in his own way
the historical greatness and necessity of the Bible revelation." — Unbelief
in the Eighteenth Century, p. 280.
2 See next chapter.
'This is the argument pursued, on critical lines, in Lecture IV., on
"The Proof of a Divine Revelation in the Old Testament," of Professor
G. A. Smith's Modern Criticism, etc.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED n
neither is it our wish, to minimise it. We must now approach
the subject more closely, and endeavour to fix with greater
precision where the dividing-line between the two views lies.
In certain external respects, as in temple, priesthood,
sacrifices, the religion of Israel necessarily presents a
resemblance to other religions. To the eye of the outward
observer, it is simply one of the great historical religions.
If at the same time it presents differences, this does not
of itself establish more than a relative distinction between
it and others. Every religion has not only a certain i
resemblance to every other, arising from the fact that it/
is a religion, but has, moreover, a definite character orf
physiognomy of its own, resulting from the different genius]
of the people, from the individuality of its founder, or from!
the circumstances of its history. If now, however, we go.
further, and affirm that, in the midst of all resemblances,
this religion of Israel presents features which not onlyl
differentiate it from every other, but differentiate it in\
such a way as to compel us to ascribe to it an origin in J
special, supernatural revelation, we obviously take a new
step, which we must be prepared to justify by the most
cogent reasons. It will not be enough to show that the
religion of Israel is a better religion than others— or even
taking into account its fulfilment in Christianity, that it
is the most perfect of existing religions : for conceivably it
might be that, yet have essentially no higher origin than
they ; just as one people may be endowed with the artistic,
or philosophic, or scientific genius beyond others, — the
Greeks, for instance, among ancient peoples, in art and
philosophy, — without its being necessary to postulate foi
this a supernatural cause. Most critics, even of the
rationalistic order, will admit that Israel had a genius
for religion, and was the classical people of religion in
antiquity ; will not hesitate to speak also of its providential
mission to humanity, even as Greece and Rome had their
vocations to mankind. It is a proposition different in kind
when the origin of the religion of Israel is sought in a
special, continuous, authoritative revelation, such as other
peoples did not possess. Here we touch a real contrast,
and, with reservation of a certain ambiguity in the word
" revelation," 1 obtain a clear issue.
1 See below, pp. 19 ff.

12 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
For now the fact becomes apparent, — there is, indeed,
not the least attempt to disguise it, — that, to a large and
influential school of critical inquirers — those, moreover, who
have had most to do with the shaping of the current critical
theories — this question of a supernatural origin for the
religion of Israel is already foreclosed ; is ruled out at the
start as a priori inadmissible. The issue could not be
better stated than it is by the Dutch scholar Kuenen in
the opening chapter of his work, The Religion of Israel.
The chapter is entitled "Our Standpoint," and in it the
principle is expressly laid down that no distinction can be
admitted in respect of origin between the religion of Israel
and other religions. "For us," he says, "the Israelitish
religion is one of those religions; nothing less, but also
nothing more."1 This is, in the style of assumption too
usual in the school, declared to be "the view taken by
modern theological science."2 "No one," he says, "can
expect or require us to support in this place by a complete
demonstration the right of the modern as opposed to the
ecclesiastical view."3 It is an "ecclesiastical" view,
it appears, to assume that any supernatural factor is
involved in the history or religion of Israel : the " modern "
view rejects this. If any ambiguity could attach to these
statements, it would be removed by his further explana
tions, which, in so many words, exclude the idea that the
Jewish and Christian religions are derived from "special
divine revelation," or are "supernatural" in their origin.4
He puts the matter with equal frankness in his work on
Prophets and Prophecy. " Prophecy is," he tells us, " accord
ing to this new view, a phenomenon, yet one of the most
important and remarkable phenomena, in the history of
religion, but just on that account a human phenomenon,
1 Religion of Israel, i. p. 5. * Ibid. p. 6.
8 Ibid. p. 7.
4 Ibid. pp. 5, 6. In a Life of Kuenen in the Jewish Quarterly Review,
vol. iv., by Mr. Wicksteed, the Dutch "modern" movement, of which
Kuenen was a principal leader, is thus described. "It was an attempt of
singular boldness and vigour to shake the traditions of Christian piety free
from every trace of supernaturalism and implied exclusiveness. ... It
involved the absolute surrender of the orthodox dogmatics ; of the authority
of the Scriptures ; of the divine character of the Church as an external
institution ; and of course it based the claims of Jesus of Nazareth to our
affection and gratitude solely upon what history could show that He, as a
man, had been, and had done for men" (p. 596).

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 13
proceeding from Israel, directed to Israel."1 And later:
"So soon as we derive a separate part of Israel's religious
life directly from God, and allow the supernatural or
immediate revelation to intervene in even one single
point, so long also our view of the whole continues to be
incorrect. ... It is the supposition of a natural develop
ment alone which accounts for all the phenomena." 2 Quite
similar to the standpoint here avowed by Kuenen is that
of a wide circle of leading scholars — of Duhm, Well-
hausen, Stade, Smend, Gunkel, and a multitude more in
the front ranks of the modern critical movement. We noted
above Wellhausen's declaration of his identity in standpoint
with Vatke — Vatke being a thorough - going Hegelian
rationalist in the first half of last century. Shortly after in
his book we have the express acknowledgment : " My inquiry
comes nearer to that of Vatke, from whom indeed I grate
fully acknowledge myself to have learned best and most." 3
This, then, quite unambiguously stated, is the issue to
which the religion of Israel— and with it Christianity, for
in this connection the two very much stand or fall together —
is brought at the present day. Yet the contrast drawn by
Kuenen in the above passage between the "modern" and
the " ecclesiastical " view, which he announces as the ruling
principle of his treatment, is, it need hardly be said, a
flagrant petitio principii* To assume beforehand, in an
inquiry which turns on this very point, that the religion
of Israel presents no features but such as are explicable
out of natural causes, — that no higher factors are needed
to account for it, — is to prejudge the whole question;
while to assume this to be the only view held by " modern "
scholars — in other words, to exclude from this category men
of the distinction of those formerly enumerated, who, with
1 Prophets and Prophecy in Israel, p. 4.
' Ibid. p. 585. Dr. John Muir, at whose instance the work was under
taken, contributed an Introduction to the English translation. In the
course of this he thus states Dr. Kuenen's position : " Israelitish prophecy
was not a supernatural phenomenon, derived from divine inspiration ; but
was a result of the high moral and religious character attained by the
prophets whose writings have been transmitted to us " (p. xxxvii). From a
published letter of Kuenen's we learn the interesting fact, otherwise
attested to us, that Dr. Muir subsequently changed his opinions, and
recalled from circulation the v°olume he had been instrumental in producing.
* Hist, of Israel, p. 13.
4 Cf. the remarks of I.add, Doct. of Sac. Scripture, i. p. 371.

14 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
their critical views, take strong ground on the subject of
revelation — is to contradict fact, and degrade the term
" modern " to the designation of a clique. If, on impartial
consideration, it can be shown that the religion of Israel
admits of explanation on purely natural principles, then the
historian will be justified in his verdict that it stands, in
this respect, on the same footing as other religions. If, on
the other hand, fair investigation brings out a different
result, — if it demonstrates that this religion has features
which place it in a different category from all others, and
compel us to postulate for it a different and higher origin,1 —
then that fact must be frankly recognised as part of the
scientific result, and the nature and extent of this higher
element must be made the subject of inquiry. It will not
do to override the facts — if facts they are — by a priori
dogmatic assumptions on the one side any more than on
the other. Thus far we agree with Kuenen, that we must
begin by treating the religion of Israel exactly as we would
treat any other religion. Whatever our personal con
victions — and of these, of course, we cannot divest our
selves — we must, in conducting our argument, place
ourselves in as absolutely neutral an attitude of mind as
we can. We must try to see the facts exactly as they are
If differences emerge, let them be noted. If the facts ar&
such as to compel us to assume a special origin for this
religion, let that come to light in the course of the inquiry.
Let us frankly admit also that it is no slight, recondite,
contestables or inferential differences, but only broad,
obvious, cumulative, indubitable grounds, which will suffice
as basis of a claim to such special origin. If such do not
exist, we concede that candour will compel us to fall back
on the naturalistic hypothesis.
It is perfectly true that it is impossible in any inquiry
to dispense with guiding principles of investigation, and
with presuppositions of some kind, and there is no criticism
on earth that does so — certainly not that of Kuenen and
Wellhausen. Only these should not be allowed to warp
or distort the facts, or be applied to support a preconceived
conclusion. The scientist also finds it incumbent on him
to " anticipate nature " with his interrogations and tentative
hypotheses, which, however, have to be brought to the test
1 This is the argument in Chap. II.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 15
of experimental verification. We find no fault with these
writers, if they are persuaded that their view of Israel's
religion is the true one, for endeavouring, with all the skill
at their command, to show that it is So. It is even well
that such experiments should be made. The case, in short,
is one of competing interpretations of the Old Testament,
and, assuming Israel's religion to be divine, the effect of
the most searching application of critical tests can only be
to bring out this divineness into stronger relief. No
Christian, therefore, who has confidence that God, who
spoke to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days
spoken to us by His Son,1 need shrink from any trial to
which criticism exposes the Bible. It is the Nemesis of a
wrong starting-point in every department of inquiry that
those who adopt it find themselves plunged, as they proceed,
into ever-deepening error and confusion; while a right
guiding-idea as infallibly conducts to a view marked by
simplicity and truth. If Kuenen and those who think
with him are right in their first principles, they will find
their theory work out easily and naturally in its application
to the phenomena of Scripture : 2 if they are wrong, their
hypothesis will inevitably break down under its own weight,
as did that of Baur in the sphere of the New Testament
half a century ago. The ultimate test in either case is
fitness to meet the facts. It has already been pointed out
that the result of a searching inquiry has been to produce
in many minds the conviction that Israel's religion can not
be explained on mere natural principles.
III. The Literary Problem: Its Dependence on
the Religious
Thus much on the more fundamental part of our
problem; it remains to be asked how far the conclusions
reached on this point affect the questions raised, in the
field of literary discussion, on the age, authorship, structure,
1 Heb. i 1.
•This is their own claim. Professor W. R. Smith, e.g., in his Preface
to Wellhausen, says : " In the oourse of the argument it appears that the
plain, natural sense of the old history has constantly been distorted by the
false presuppositions with which we have been accustomed to approach
it."— Pref. to Hist, of Israel, p. viii. The implication is that Wellhausen's
view gives the "plain, natural sense."

16 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
and historical value of the Old Testament boohs — especially
of the Pentateuch, or " five books " traditionally attributed
to Moses. What is the interest of Christian faith in these
discussions, or has it any ? Abstractly considered, of
course, as already said,1 questions of age, authorship, and
historical genesis are, in comparison with those we have
now been considering, of secondary importance. The later
age, or composite structure, of a book is no necessary
disproof of its truth. Freeman's History of the Norman
Conquest, e.g., though written in the nineteenth century,
does not give us a less just or vivid idea of the series of
events to which it relates, than the contemporary monkish
chronicles, etc., on which it is based. The age, authorship,
and simple or composite character of a book are matters
for investigation, to be determined solely by evidence, and
it is justly claimed that criticism, in its investigation of
such subjects, must be untrammelled: that faith cannot
be bound up with results of purely literary judgments.
It will be urged, further, that, as we have admitted, the
denial of the supernatural in the Old Testament history
or religion in no way necessarily follows from any theory
of the dates or relations of documents. All this is true;
still the matter is not quite so simple as this rather
superficial way of presenting the case would picture it.
There is, as was before hinted, a very close connection
between critical premises and critical results, and it is
necessary in the present discussion that this connection
should be kept carefully in view.
It has already been explained that it is no part of the
design of these pages to cast discredit on the function of
criticism as such. It is not even contended that the critical
theories at present in vogue are constructed wholly in the
interest of rationalism: far from that. If they were, we
may be sure that so many believing men would not be
found accepting or advocating them. To account for such
acceptance we must assume that they are felt by candid
minds to answer in some degree to real facts, to rest on a
basis of real evidence, to afford an explanation of real
phenomena, to possess a plausibility and reasonableness
which constrain a genuine assent.2 On the other hand, it
can as little be doubted that the critical hypothesis, in the
1 See above, p. 5. a See below, Chap. VII. pp. 195-6.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 17
form into which it has gradually crystallised, shows, in many
of its features, a marked dependence on rationalistic pre
suppositions. There is no gainsaying the fact that, histori-
cally,it was in rationalistic workshops.mainly, that the critical
theory was elaborated, and that, from this circumstance, a
certain rationalistic impress was stamped upon it from the
first.1 From Eichhorn and those who followed him — Von
Bohlen, Vatke, De Wette, and the rest— the critical treat
ment of the Pentateuch received a " set " in the direction of
naturalism which it has to some extent retained ever since.
Most of all is it true of the type of theory which is at
present the dominant one — the theory which, to indicate
the line, of its origin, we might describe as the Vatke-Graf-
Kuenen-Wellhausen-Stade one — that it is rationahstic in
its basis, and in every fibre of its construction. Yet it
is this theory which, chiefly through the brilliant advocacy
of Wellhausen, has for the time won an all but universal
recognition in critical circles on the Continent and in English-
speaking countries. Its arguments are adopted, its con
clusions endorsed, its watchwords repeated, with almost
monotonous fidelity of iteration, by a majority of scholars
of all classes — in Churches and out of Churches, High
Church, Broad Church, and Low Church, sceptical and
believing. This says much for the plausibility of the
theory, but it suggests also a grave problem. The critical
hypothesis must, of course, be considered on its merits ; but
is there not, on the face of it, a supreme improbability that
a theory evolved under the conditions we have described
should be, in that form, a theory adequate to Christian faith,
or with which Christian faith can ultimately be content?
Is it such a theory as Christian faith would ever have
evolved from its own presuppositions ? Can it ever be purged
of its rationalistic leaven, and adapted to the use of
the Christian Churches, without a complete re-casting on
1 The statement of .the late Dr. Green may need qualification as respects
later scholars, but is in the main true of the originators of the critical
movement: "The development of critical hypotheses inimical to the
genuineness and the truth of the books of the Bible has from the beginning
been in the hands of those who were antagonistic to supernatural religion ;
whose interest in the Bible was purely literary, and who refused to recognise
its claims as an immediate and authoritative revelation from God." — Higher
Criticism, p. 177. Cf. Dr. Cheyne on the indebtedness of the German critical
movement to English Deism {Founders of Criticism, pp. 1, 2). See also
below, p. 58.

1 8 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
principles which are the direct antitheses of those which
obtain in the schools in which it originated? We take
leave to doubt it. Christian scholars are no doubt entirely
Berious in their acceptance of its conclusions, but there
must grow up, we are persuaded — if there is not already
growing up — a perception of the incompatibility of their
belief, as Christians, in a historical revelation, culminating
in the Incarnation,1 with a set of results wrought out on
the basis of a purely naturalistic view of Israel's history
and religion — which, in fact, as will be discovered, reduces
the bulk of that history to ruins ! 2 ,
Criticism, it is granted, must be untrammelled ; also, the
results complained of do not necessarily follow from the
reigning critical hypothesis. This last remark we must admit
to be true, for part of our own argument in a future chapter
is built upon it.8 Still it cannot well be denied that, if all
the results do not necessarily follow from the theory, a
good many of them do very easily and naturally follow;
that the way is logically open for them, as it would not be
on another theory ; and that the reason why the stronger
conclusion is not drawn often is simply that the believing
critics are less logical than their fellows. A theory may
not always be followed to its conclusions, where these,
nevertheless, very logically follow. It could not be other
wise, when regard is had to the presuppositions under the
influence of which the theory was formed. Everything, as
Rothe said, can be laid hold of by two handles ; and where the
case is one, as before remarked, of competing interpretations
of the same facts, while it is true as ever that both will not
be found equally suitable to the facts, and that no ingenuity
can make them so, the room left for the play of subjective con
siderations is still very large. In this connection, questions
of age and authorship are far from being always of secondary
moment. The true inwardness of many of these will appear
after in the course of our discussion. It will be forced
upon us when we observe how frequently the dating does
not arise from purely literary considerations, but is deter
mined by critical assumptions, or by congruity with an
a priori scheme of development, and when we see the^wse
to which the dating is put, viz., to lower the dates of other
1 See Ottley below, p. 22. J Cf. Chap. III. pp. 58 ff.
* Chap. III.

INTRODUCTORY : THE PROBLEM STATED 19
writings, or subvert the credibility of the history.1 The
late date of the documents composing the Pentateuch, e.g.,
may be employed to support the contention that the narra
tive of the Pentateuchal books is wholly, or in great part,
legendary ; the post-exilian date of the Levitical laws may
be used to destroy the connection of the laws with Moses ;
the low date assigned to the psalms may be really a corollary
from a particular theory of Israel's religious development,
and may be used, in turn, to buttress that theory. In other
ways the literary criticism, not intentionally perhaps, but
really and effectively, may be put at the service of the
theory. Books may be divided up, or texts manipulated
and struck out, till the writing is made to speak the language
which the critic desires. The hyper-analysis of documents
may result in the dissipation of everything of grandeur,
not to say of consistency and truthfulness, in a narrative.
Whether this is an over-colouring of the character of the
critical procedure, in the hands of many of its representatives,
will be better judged of in the sequel.
IV. Attitude of Criticism to "Revelation"
A little may be said before closing this chapter on a line
of remark sometimes met with, to the effect that the
contrast we have sought to indicate between the believing
and the " modern " ways of regarding the Old Testament is,
after all, less important than it seems. Partly, it may be
urged, we have unduly narrowed the scope of the words
" revelation " and " supernatural " ; partly, we have not done
justice to the high views of God and of His providential
government which even rationalistic critics allow that the
prophets of Israel ultimately attained. Professor W. R.
Smith, in his lectures on The Prophets of Israel, may be taken
as representing this latter standpoint. Referring to that
"large and thoughtful school of theologians" which yet
"refuses to believe that God's dealings with Israel in the
times before Christ can be distinguished under the special
name of revelation from His providential guidance of
other nations," he observes that "in one point of view
this departure from the usual doctrine of Christians is
perhaps less fundamental than it seems at first sight to be."
1 See Appendix to Chap. X. pp. 378-9.

20 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
He goes on : " For, as a matter of fact, it is not and cannot
be denied that the prophets found for themselves and their
nation a knowledge of God, and not a mere speculative
knowledge, but a practical fellowship of faith with Him,
which the seekers after truth among the Gentiles never
attained, to."1 The idea seems to be that, these high views
of God and of religion in the prophets being acknowledged
to be there, it is not necessary to burden the argument with
too curious questions as to how they got to be there, —
whether by supernatural revelation, or in the way in which
spiritual truth is grasped by thinkers of other nations.
Enough that we now have them.
This appears to us, however, to be very fallacious
reasoning ; the more that Professor Smith admits that behind
" there appears to lie a substantial and practical difference
of view between the common faith of the Churches and the
views of the modern school," 2 and proceeds to give very
cogent reasons for assuming a more direct and special revela
tion.3 Not only, on the view described, is the prophet's
own consciousness of the source of his message denied, and
the higher character of his knowledge of God left without
adequate explanation ; but the results in the two cases are
not the same. The ideas of the prophets on God, on the
naturalistic hypothesis, cannot be allowed, at best, to rise
higher than man is capable of attaining by the reflection of
his own mind on his natural and providential environment,
i.e., to certain general truths about God's existence, unity,
ethical character, and universal providence. Even this, it
might be shown, assumes much more than the premises of
the system will warrant, and, like the " natural religion " of the
eighteenth century Deism, implies an unacknowledged debt
to revelation. In any case it does not yield an authoritative
revelation of God's purpose, and saving will for man, derived
immediately from Himself : it lacks, even in what it does
yield, in certitude ; and in both respects falls short of what
is demanded by the full Christian faith. It is further
apparent that on such a view justice cannot be done to the
earlier stages of the religion of Israel. The temptation ol
the critic who proceeds on these lines — if, indeed, he has
any alternative — is to lower the character of the religion to
Buit the conditions of its hypothetical development ; to give
1 Prophets of Israel, p. 9. J Ibid. p. 10. ' * Ibid. pp. 11, 12.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 21
a mean view of its origin and early manifestations ; and to
contend against the recognition of a divine redemptive
purpose manifesting itself from the first in its history.
With respect to the usage of the words "revelation"
and "supernatural," we have gladly acknowledged that
there are few scholars of the present day — among serious
investigators probably none — who would deny that Israel
had a unique vocation, or would refuse to recognise, in some
degree, a "providential guidance" in its history. Thus
Duhm makes the quite general statement that, objectively
regarded, there is no alternative to "the necessity of
accepting a providential guidance in the actual stages of the
development of religion." 1 Most, however, in recent years
go further, and freely use the word " revelation " to express
the peculiarity of Israel's religion. Thus Gunkel, one of the
most radical of critics, says : " The conviction remains irre
fragable that, in the course of the Israelitish religion, the
power of the living God reveals itself";2 and elsewhere:
" Israel is, and remains, the people of revelation." 8 When
the matter is inquired into, however, it is found that the
term " revelation " is here used in a sense which does not in
reality cover more than Kuenen's " natural development," or
Duhm's " providential guidance." That which, on the human
side, is natural psychological development, is, on the divine
side, interpreted as God's revelation of Himself to man.4
Whichever formula is employed, the advocates of this
type of theory find themselves in an obvious difficulty.
God's "guidance" is recognised, but the guidance is of so
faulty a character that it results in a set of ideas as to a
supernatural government of the world, and supernatural
dealings of God with Israel, wholly alien to the actual state
of the facts as the critics represent it. If " revelation " is
affirmed, the revelation is held to be compatible with an
abundance of error and illusion, and results, again, on the
part of the prophets, in a total misreading of the past
history of the nation, and in views of God, His purpose, and
living relations with men, which, if true, would cut the
1 Theol. d. Propheten, p. 89.
2 Schbpfung und Chaos, p. 118.
8 Israel und Babylonien, pp. 37-38.
4 Gunkel says : "The history of revelation transacts itself among men
according to the same psychological laws as every other human event." —
Ibid. p. 37. Cf. the whole passage, pp. 34-38.

22 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
ground from under the rationalistic theory. The elements,
in either case, which the critics permit themselves to extract
from the prophetic teaching do not, as said, rise above a
vague theism,1 and the announcement of an ethical ideal.
" Revelation," in the specific; supernatural sense, is not, and
cannot be, admitted on this view, either in the process or in
the goal. Not in the process, for there is nothing there,
confessedly, transcending natural conditions; and not in
the goal, for Jesus, with all these writers, while reverenced
as the highest type — for us the pattern — -of spiritual religion,
is nothing more : x least of all is He the Son of God incar
nate. Our distinction between natural and supernatural in
the history of Israel, therefore, remains. Even with regard
to those — and they are many — who do in some form admit
" supernatural " revelation, it cannot be too constantly borne
in mind that it is not any and every kind of admission of
the supernatural which satisfies the Christian demand. It
is Christ Himself in the full revelation of His glory as the
only-begotten Son who is the touchstone and measure of
the supernatural for faith ; and only that view of revelation
in Israel is adequate which finds its necessary culmination
in His Person and redemption.2
It is now proper that a sketch should be given of the
general course to be followed in the discussions in the
succeeding chapters.
First, a brief preliminary survey will be taken of the
witness which the Old Testament itself bears, in its
structure, and in the uniqueness of its history and religion,
to its own authority and inspiration as the record of God's
revelation to His ancient people (Chap. II.). Thus far
critical questions are held over.
1 See on Kuenen above, p. 12.
2 Ottley says : "If Jesus Christ were merely the last and most eminent
of a line of prophets, there would be more to be said for that familiar type
of criticism which represents Israel's religious development as a purely
natural phenomenon, having its starting-point and controlling principle not
in any intervention of a gracious and loving God, not in any supernatural
revelation imparted to elect souls at different epochs in Israel's history,
but in fetishism, or totemism, or polytheism, whence by a slow process of
purely natural evolution it passed to its final stage in ethical mono
theism." — Aspects of O.T., p. 13. Ottley, in this work, with his belief in
the Incarnation and in miracle, admits too much not to admit more. His
positive Christian beliefs fit badly into the frame of Wellhausenism.

INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED 23
The next four chapters will be devoted to the consider
ation of the question — How far is this view which the Old
Testament gives of itself affected by the results of modern
criticism? At this stage the ordinary analysis of the
Hexateuch ( JE, D, P) x will be provisionally accepted, and
the aim will be to show that, even on this basis, the
essential outlines of the patriarchal and Mosaic history
(Chaps. III., IV.), and the outstanding facts of the religion
and institutions of the Old Testament (Chaps. V, VL), are
not sensibly affected,— that they are not, and cannot be,
overturned. The way being thus cleared for consideration
of the critical hypothesis on its own merits, the four
succeeding chapters are occupied with a somewhat careful
examination of that hypothesis in its fundamental positions
and several parts. In this examination attention is con
centrated on the points which are thought to be most
crucial.2 These chapters (VII.-X.) set forth the reasons
which prevent us yielding our assent to the current critical
hypothesis, except under conditions which essentially
transform its character and bearings. The chapters may,
if the reader likes, be viewed as setting forth our " sceptical
doubts " on that hypothesis, though in many respects they
are really more than doubts. It is sought to be shown how
precarious and arbitrary are many of the grounds on which
the critical hypothesis rests, and how strong are the reasons
for challenging its principal postulates, and some of what
are regarded as its most " settled " results. This is argued
particularly in respect of :
1. The alleged distinction of the documents J and E,
and the dates assigned to these (Chap. VII.).
2. The origin of Deuteronomy in the age of Josiah or
Manasseh (Chap. VIII.).
3. The post-exilian origin of the so-called Priestly
Code (Chaps. IX., X.). Chap. IX. deals with the Code and
Chap. X. with the document.
The question of the divine names is discussed in
Chap. VII.
With respect to the Priestly writing (P), it is contended
that, whilst it is distinct in stylistic character from JE, there
1 For explanation of these symbols see Chap. III. pp. 65-66, and Chap.
¦VII. pp. 19off
2 Cf. Appendix at end of chapter.

24 INTRODUCTORY: THE PROBLEM STATED
is no evidence of P ever having existed as an independent
document; that, on the contrary, it stands in the closest
relations with the other elements in the narrative, and is
most appropriately regarded as (at least in Genesis) the
" framework " in which the JE narrative is set, with slight
working over of the latter. Reasons are given for carrying
back both books and legislation to a much earlier date than
the critical hypothesis allows, and for recognising in both
a substantially Mosaic basis.
A glance is taken at the later historical books in an
Appendix to Chap. X.
The conclusions reached in the preceding discussions
receive corroboration in a chapter on the bearings of
Archaeology on the Old Testament (Chap. XL).
A closing chapter deals with the age of the Psalter,
the reality of predictive prophecy, and the progressiveness
of divine revelation (Chap. XII.).

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
Crucial Points in the Critical Theory
It is interesting to note what the critics themselves
regard as the crucial points in their theory. Here are
a few utterances on the subject.
Westphal says: "We shall take Deuteronomy as
Ariadne's thread in the labyrinth into which the historical
problem of the Pentateuch introduces us." *
Delitzsch says: "Since then (Graf's time) the Book
of Ezekiel has become the Archimedean point on which the
Pentateuchal criticism has planted itself, and from which it
has lifted off its hinges the history of worship and literature
in Israel as hitherto accepted." 2
Wellhausen says : " The chapters xl.-xlviii. (in Ezekiel)
are the most important in his book, and have been called
by J. Orth, not incorrectly, the key of the Old Testament." 3
Smend also says : " The decisive importance of this
section for the criticism of the Pentateuch was first re
cognised by George and Vatke. It has been rightly called
the key of the Old Testament." *
Wellhausen in another place says: "The position of
the Levites is the Achilles heel of the Priestly Code." 5
Elsewhere he emphasises the centralisation of the cultus
as containing his whole position. " I differ from Graf," he
says, "chiefly in this, that I always go back to the
centralisation of the cultus, and deduce from it the
particular divergences. My whole position is contained
in my first chapter" (on "The Place of Worship.")6
Kuenen also has his Achilles heel. Speaking of Graf's
original division of the priestly history and legislation (see
1 Sources du Pent. ii. p. xxiv. 2 Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 279.
» Hist, of Israel, p. 421. * Ezechiel, p. 812.
- • Hist, of Israel, p. 167. ' Ibid. p. 368.
26

26 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER I
below, p. 200), he says: "I saw clearly that his division
of the Grundschrift was the Achilles heel of his whole
hypothesis : the solution of Graf could not be the true one :
it went only half-way." 1
In the argument in the present book special weight
will be found to be attached to the following facts : —
1. The " pre-prophetic " character of J and E, as involved
in their admitted priority to Amos and Hosea.
2. The admittedly " parallel " character of J and E, and
their marked stylistic resemblance.
3. The admitted priority of J and E, and of the " Book
of the Covenant," to Deuteronomy.
4. The admitted priority of J and E to P (in reversal
of the older view), and the fact that P is throughout
parallel to, and presupposes, JE (Wellhausen).
5. The admission by many critics (e.g., Driver, Baudissin,
Ryle) of the priority of the Levitical collection known as the
" Law of Holiness " to EzekieL
The turning points in the discussion are those indicated
in the text : —
1. Are J and E two documents, or one ?
2. The Josianic origin of Deuteronomy.
3. The post-exilian origin of the Levitical Code.
The critical positions on these three points are traversed
and the rejection of them is shown to involve as its onlj
tenable alternative (middle views as Noldeke's and Dill-
mann's being cut out by the Wellhausen polemic) the
essential Mosaicity of the Pentateuch.
1 Theol. Tydschr. 1870, p. 410.

CHAPTER II
TTbe ®lo Testament from its own point of View

' " Israel has the idea of teleology as a kind of soul." — Dobnkb.
" Behind it all is the mystery of race and of selection. It is an ultimate
fact in the history and government of the world, this eminent genius of
one tiny people for religion. We know no more : and, in M. Benan's own
terms, the people was 'selected,' just as, in words more familiar, Israel is
' the chosen people.' "— Andebw Lang.
"When we say that God dealt with Israel in the way of special revela
tion, and crowned His dealings by personally manifesting all His grace
and truth in Jesus Christ the incarnate Word, we mean that the Bible
contains within itself a perfect picture of God's gracious relations with
man, and that we have no need to go outside the Bible history to learn
anything of God and His saving will towards us, — that the whole growth
of the true religion up to its perfect fulness is set before us in the record
of God's dealings with Israel culminating in the manifestation of Jesus
Christ"— W. E. Smith.
" If the first three chapters of Genesis are taken out of the Bible, it is
deprived of the terminus a quo : if the last three chapters of the Apocalypse
are taken away, it is deprived of the terminus ad quern." — Menken.

CHAPTER II
THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM ITS OWN POINT
OE VIEW
Our subject of study, then, is this book of history, of laws,
of prophecy, of psalms, of wisdom literature, which we call
the Old Testament. Before, however, entangling ourselves
in the thorny brakes into which the critical study of this
older collection of Scriptures conducts us, it is desirable
that we should look for a little at the book by itself, in
the form in which we have it, and allow its own voice
to be heard on its character and place in the economy of
revelation. There are obvious advantages in this course. No slight
is intended to be cast on criticism : but it may be gravely
questioned whether this constant discussion going on about
the Bible, — this minute dissection and analysis of it, and
perpetual weighing of its parts in the nice scales of a critical
balance, — has not at least one harmful effect, that, viz., of
coming between men and the devout, prayerful study of
the Bible itself, out of which alone can grow that sense
of its harmony and proportion, and experience of its saving
and sanctifying power, which yield the best proof of its
divine origin. The dissecting chamber is necessary; but
it is not exactly the best place for acquiring a sense of the
symmetry and beauty of the living human body, or for
cultivating reverence for it. It is hardly less difficult to
grow into a spiritual appreciation of Scripture, when we
are not permitted to make acquaintance with a Biblical
book till it has first been put upon the critic's table, and
there sliced, severed, and anatomised, till all the palpitating
life has gone out of it, and we are left, as chief result, with
drv lists of the sections, verses, or parts of verses, supposed

30 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
to belong to the different narrators or editors ! x The Bible
has a character and power of impression which belong to
it as a living book ; it is right that these should have justice
done to them before the process of disintegration begins.
We would here indicate, therefore, at the outset, what
precisely it is we propose to do, and what we do not propose
to do, in the present chapter. We propose, then, treat
ing the Old Testament for the time as part of the general
organism of Scripture, to take the Bible just as it is, — just
as it lies before us, — and to ask what kind of a book it is,
what sort of an account it gives of itself, and what kind of
impression of its origin and source grows out of this first
hand acquaintance with it. We shall have little or nothing
to say at this stage of theories of criticism — these will come
after ; nothing of questions of age, authorship, or genuine
ness; little of theories of revelation or inspiration. There
may be gain, for once, in leaving these things for a short while
aside, and permitting the Bible to speak for itself — to utter
its own unconstrained testimony — to produce on the mind
its own immediate effect, without reference to outside
controversies. The Bible may prove in this way, as it has
often proved before, to be its own best witness, and it is
this aspect and evidence of its divineness which, it seems to
us, it is necessary at the present time, in the difficulty and
uncertainty in which many are involved, most of all to
emphasise. I. The Organic Unity of the Book
We take up the Bible, then, in the way suggested, and
the first thing, we think, that must strike us in connec
tion with it, is, that this book is, in a remarkable sense,
a unity. From another point of view, of course, the Bible
is not one book, but a collection of books : as Jerome named
it, " a divine library." It comes to us " by divers portions
and in divers manners." 2 The writings that compose it are
spread over at least a thousand years. Yet the singular
fact is that, when these writings are put together, they
1 In illustration, the reader may consult, e.g., the tabular summations
which are the chief outcome of the (otherwise able) article on "Exodus" in
Hastings' Diet, of the Bible (i. pp. 806 ff.). The sensation is like chewing
glass. 2 Heb. i. 1.

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 31
constitute, structurally, one book ; make up a " Bible," l as
we call it, with beginning, and middle, and end, which
produces on the mind a sense of harmony and completeness.
This peculiarity in the Bible, which is not essentially
affected by any results of criticism — since, indeed, the more
the critic divides and distributes his material, the outcome
in the book as we have it is only the more wonderful 2 — is
best illustrated by contrast. For Christianity is not the
only religion in the world, nor is the Bible the only
collection of sacred books in existence. There are many
Bibles of different religions. The Mohammedan has his
Koran ; the Buddhist has his Canon of Sacred Scriptures ;
the Zoroastrian has his Zendavesta; the Brahman has his
Vedas. On the basis of this very fact, comparative religion
groups a number of religions together as "book-religions."
These sacred books are made accessible to us by reliable
translations, and we can compare them with our own
Scriptures. But, not to speak of the enormous superiority
of tne Bible to these other sacred books, even in a literary
respect, — for few, we presume, capable of judging, would
think of comparing even the noblest of the Babylonian or
Vedic hymns, or of the Zoroastrian Gathas, in power or
grandeur, with the Hebrew psalms; or would liken the
few really lofty passages on God in the Koran with the
sustained sublimity of the Hebrew prophets ; or would draw
a parallel between the wild extravagances of the Buddhist
Lalita Vistara and the simplicity, beauty, and self-restraint
of the Christian Gospels,8 — we would fix attention only on
this one point — the contrast in respect of unity. We seek
in vain in these ethnic Scriptures for anything answering to
this name. The Koran, for instance, is a miscellany of dis
jointed pieces, out of which it is impossible to extract any
order, progress, or arrangement. The 114 Suras or chapters
of which it is composed are arranged chiefly according
to length — the longer in general preceding the shorter.4
1 Originally Biblia, "The Books," then "in tne thirteenth century, by
a happy solecism," says Westcott, "the neuter plural came to be regarded as
a feminine singular, and 'The Books' became, by| common consent, 'The
Book,' in which form the word has passed into the languages of modern
Europe." — Bible in the Church, p. 5.
a See below, Chap. III.
» See Note A on the Bible and other Sacred Books.
* They were originally, as given by Mohammed, written on pieces of
itone bone, leather, palm-leaves, or whatever material was available, and

32 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
It is not otherwise with the Zoroastrian and Buddhist
Scriptures. These are equally destitute of beginning,
middle, or end. They are, for the most part, collections
of heterogeneous materials, loosely placed together. How
different everyone must acknowledge it to be with the
Bible ! From Genesis to Revelation we feel that this book
is in a real sense a unity. It is not a collection of
fragments, but has, as we say, an organic character. It
has one connected story to tell from beginning, to end;
we see something growing before our eyes; there is plan,
purpose, progress; the end folds back on the beginning,
and, when the whole is finished, we feel that here again, as
in the primal creation, God has finished all His works, and,
behold, they are very good. This is a very external way, it
may be granted, of looking at the Bible, yet it is a very
important one. It puts the Bible before us at the outset
as a unique book. There is nothing exactly resembhng
it, or even approaching it, in alL literature.1 To find its
explanation, it compels us to go behind the fragmentariness
of the parts, to the underlying unity of thought and purpose
in the whole. The unity of the Bible is not something
factitious — made. It grows out of the unity of the religion
and the history, and points to that as its source.
II. Fulfilment of the Old Testament in the New
To deepen our impression of this unity of the Bible, and
at the same time carry us a step further into the heart of
our subject, we notice again that the Bible consists of two
parts — an Old Testament and a New, — and would observe
how the second of these parts folds back upon the first. The
Old Testament is one group of writings, mostly in Hebrew,
and the New Testament is another group of writings, in
Greek, with centuries. between them. Yet how manifestly
is the latter the counterpart and completion of the former !
The argument from prophecy has often been overdriven, and
may easily be run into exaggeration and triviality ; but if
thrown into a chest ; thence, after Mohammed's death, they were taken out
and copied. Some were preserved only by memory.
1 " No other literature is linked into one whole like this, instinct with one
spirit and purpose, and, with all its variety of character and origin, moving
forward to an unseen yet certain goal." — Kirkpatriok, Divine Library of
the O.T., p. 92.

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 33
we take the Bible's own way of putting it, " The testimony
of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy,"1 it is difficult for any
candid mind to deny that the spirit of the Old Testament
fulfils itself in the New. This, again, is a result largely
independent of critical discussions. Take, for example, that
wonderful picture of the suffering Servant of Jehovah in the
53rd chapter of Isaiah, which the Church has always,
and rightly, regarded as Messianic.2 Dismissing for the
moment all critical considerations as to age, authorship,
or original reference, let anyone steep his mind in the
contents o'f that chapter, then read what is said about Jesus
in the Gospels, and, as he stands under the shadow of the
Cross, say if there is not the most complete correspondence
between the two. In Jesus of Nazareth, alone in all history,
but in Him perfectly, has this prophecy found a fulfil
ment. The meekness, the pathos of undeserved suffering,
the atoning function, the final triumph, will suit no
other.8 The result is not different if we enlarge our view to the
consideration of the religion of Israel as a whole. The
religion of Israel has been called a religion of hope. Its
face is always to the future.4 The system of things in the
Old Testament presents itself prevailingly as something
provisional, temporary, incomplete. There is growth in the
Old Testament — from the patriarchal stage to the Mosaic ;
from the Mosaic to the prophetic ; but it is like the plant
developing from stalk to bud, and from bud to flower, there
is a final stage yet to come — that of the ripened fruit.6
1 Tig"-' xix Id
aCf. Dr. A. B. Davidson, O.T. Prophecy, pp. 411, 427, 445. "There
is not one," he says, " of the better class of critics who does not recognise
the pertinence of the question, In whom are the features of the Servant to
be recognised ? or who does not give the same answer to the question as
the orthodox theologian" (p. 411).
3 Bleek, quoted by Dr. Davidson, says : ' ' What the prophet here says as
^et in general, in reference to the Servant as such, as it were in abstracto,
nas received its complete fulfilment in the One, who was the only holy and
perfectly sinless among the human race, and therefore the only one whose
sufferings had such a character that, not being due to His own individual
transgression in any way, they can be regarded as serving for the atonement
of the sins of men."— O.T. Prophecy, p. 411; cf. Orelli, O.T. Prophecy,
pp. 387 ff.
4 E.g., Gen. xii. 3.
0 Dillmann says : " This religion of the ancient people of Israel every
where points beyond itself, exhibiting itself as a work begun, which lacks
its final perfection, and so compels us in the nature of the case to apprehend

34 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
The old covenant is to give place to a new, — a more
inward and spiritual, — when the law of God shall be written
on men's hearts ; x the old national forms are to break up,
and Jehovah is to become the God of the whole earth ; 2 in
their deepest abasement and humiliation the people of Israel
never lose the assurance that from them the light is to go
forth which shall illumine the darkness of the whole world
— that the Gentiles shall come to their light, and kings to
the brightness of their rising.8 These things are not to be
brought about without instrumentality, and here we find,
trait after trait, the figure of the Messiah shaping itself, —
the King who is to reign in righteousness,4 the Immanuel-
Child, with the wondrous fourfold name, who is the
guarantee for the perpetuity of the throne and kingdom of
David,6 the Servant of Jehovah, who is to bear the people's
sins,6 the Branch who is to build again the temple of
Jehovah.7 The Spirit will be poured out upon all flesh,8
and the kingdom of God will come.
Now, let anyone open his New Testament, and say if
there is no counterpart to, and completion of, all this there.
Something higher, grander, diviner, no doubt, than even the
prophets could imagine; yet bringing to pass in every
essential respect all that they foretold, all that lay in the
bosom of that old covenant waiting its realisation.9 May
we not say that the Christian Church itself is a living proof
of the truth of these predictions? Is it not Israel's God
we worship ? Is it not Israel's faith that beats in our
hearts ? Israel's Messiah we trust in for salvation ? Israel's
privilege to which we are admitted ? Every time we sing
these old Hebrew psalms, which are to this hour so mar
vellous an expression of the faith, and hope, and aspirations
of the soul seeking after God, do we not declare that we
it in relation to Christianity, as that in which essentially it is per
fected." — Alttest. Theol. p. 8.
1 Cf. Deut. xxx. 6 ; Jer. xxxi. 31-4 ; xxxii. 39, 40 ; Ezek. xi. 19, 20 ;
xxxvi. 26, 27.
* Num. xiv. 21 j Isa. xiv. 22, 23 ; Zeph. ii. 11 ; Hag. ii. 6, 7.
* Isa. lx., etc. 4 Isa. xxxii. 1 ; xxxiii. 15, 18.
• Isa. vii. 14 ; viii. 8, 10 ; ix. 6, 7 ; cf. Mic. v. 2, 3.
* Isa. liii.
7 Zech. iii. 8 ; vi. 12 ; cf. Isa. iv. 2 ; Jer. xxiii. 5.
8 Joel ii. 28, 29. On these passages see the works on O.T. Prophecy by
Davidson, Delitzsch, Riehm, Orelli, etc., and cf. below, Chap. XII. p. 460.
9 Cf. the suggestive sections in Riehm's Mess. Prophecy (E.T. 1876),
pp. 33ff.

US UWJN POINT OF VIEW 35
belong to the same spiritual city as the men who wrote
them ? * When, accordingly, the New Testament gathers up
all these types and prophecies of the Old Testament, and
sees them fulfilled in Christ,2 — calls Him, for example, the
" Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world," s
the " chief corner stone, elect, precious," which God has laid
in Zion,4 identifies Him with that Servant of whom it is
declared that the Spirit of Jehovah was upon Him, to
preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the broken
hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening
of the prison to them that are bound,6 — do we not feel that
it is justified in so doing? When the writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews sees all the old rites and institutions
glorified in the light of the new religion, and represents
them as types and shadows which have fulfilled their
function, and pass away now that the reality has come,6 — do
we not recognise that he is giving us the truest rationale of
that old economy ? When the Book of Revelation tells of
Paradise restored, and figures the tree of life growing in the
midst,7 do we not feel that the end of revelation, in very
truth, looks back to its beginning, and that here the ruin of
Eden is, repaired, and the curse of man's first disobedience,
which "brought death into our world, and all our woe,"
finally abolished ? There is again nothing mechanical in
this relation of the Ohi and New Testaments. The connec
tion is vital, not external, but is on that account all the
more wonderful, and without parallel.
III. Teleologioal Character of the History
We have seen that this surprising unity which char
acterises the Bible is only to be explained by going back
to the history and the religion which the Bible makes known
»Cf. Ps. lxxxvii. (R.V.).
2 Kuenen allows that this fulfilment was claimed by Jesus and His
disciples, and says "it is impossible for us to form too high an estimate of
the importance of the application of these passages. "—Prophets and Prophecy,
pp. 522 ff. But he holds that the interpretation is unwarranted. Yet how
aingolar that these representations should admit of "being merged in one
crand figure." if nothing of the kind was intended.
» John i. 29. * 1 Pet. ii. 6 ; cf. Isa. xxviii. 16.
* Isa. lxi. 1 ; cf. Luke iv. 18. It is Jesus Himself who makes this
identification. • Heb. ix. 9 ; x. 1. ' Eev. 11. 7 ; xxu. 2.

36 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
to us, in which the real mystery or wonder lies. [The Bible
i3 a unique book, because it is the record and literature of a
unique religion. We turn first to the history, and here are
at once arrested by what may be described as its teleologioal
character. " Israel," says Dorner, " has the idea of teleology
as a kind of soul."1 Its history, that is, is dominated by
the idea of purpose. It is this which gives unity to the
history and to the books which contain it. The purpose
is not always consciously apprehended by the actors in the
events ; still less, as we shall see hereafter, is it something
which exists only in the minds of the authors of the books,
and is by them put into the history.2 It lies in the facts
themselves, and reveals itself with increasing clearness as
the history proceeds, till at length the mystery " hid from
all ages and generations"8 is fully unveiled in Christ
and His salvation. This teleologioal character of the history
is recognised by every writer of genuine insight into the.
spiritual nature of Israel's religion,4 and is allowed to stamp
the religion with a uniqueness which absolutely distinguishes
it from every other/J
But the fact lies on the face of the history itself. This
is readily seen by a glance at the development. The basis
is laid in the account of the creation of the world, and of
the culmination of that creation in man. From this the
narrative goes on to recount man's fall, and to trace the
development of the race in the lines of piety and impiety
through Seth and Cain respectively, till the growing
corruption of the world brings upon it the judgment of
the flood. A new start is made in the covenant with
Noah, from whom the repeopling of the world, and the
distribution of its races, proceed. The growing spread of
godlessness, and lapse of the nations into heathenism, leads
to the next step in the unfolding of the divine purpose in
the call of Abraham, and in the promises made to him and
1 Syst. of Doct. i. p. 274.
* See this discussed below, Chap. III. pp. 62-64.
8 Col. i. 26 ; cf. Eph. iii. 3, 9.
4 Schultz, e.g., in his O.T. Theol. p. 2, says : "We mean to describe,
not various forms of religion, which have merely an external connection
of place or time, but a single religion in the various stages of its develop
ment, which stages consequently have an organic inner connection. Hence
in such a presentation each member must be properly linked to its fellow.
A common ligament of living growth must bind all the parts together.
The presentation must be, not merely historical, but genetic."

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 3;
to his seed. The promise of blessing, beginning in Eden,1
afterwards restricted to the line of Shem,2 is now, in the
Abrahamic covenant, definitely associated with this patriarch
and his posterity — not, however, in the spirit of a narrow
particularism, but with a view to the ultimate blessing of
mankind.3 Already appears at this early stage of the history
that law of election, — of gracious purpose working along a
defined line for an ultimate larger good, — which is so marked
a feature of the history throughout. The line of promise
still further narrows itself — for limitation and definiteness
here are essential to success — in Abraham's sons, in the
election of Isaac, not Ishmael ; in Isaac's sons, in the choice
of Jacob, not Esau ; in Jacob's sons, in the designation of
Judah as the royal tribe.4 The patriarchal age, with its
renewals of the covenant, its prophetic announcements,
its singular providences, its preparation in the elevation of
Joseph for the descent into Egypt, ends with the removal
to that country, where the people had room and opportunity
to multiply, till, with change of dynasty, the fiery trial over
took them by which they were finally welded into a nation.
The Mosaic age, which succeeds the patriarchal, is
closely linked with the preceding through the promises
to the fathers, of which it brought the fulfilment. Allusion
need only be made to the series of events which marks this
beginning of Israel's national life — the birth and call of
Moses, the Exodus, the covenant at Sinai, the. discipline of
the wilderness, the settlement in Canaan, the land before
promised to Abraham. The vicissitudes and disorganisation
of the time of the Judges and of Samuel lead up to the rise
of the monarchy, and to the new hopes and promises attached
to the line of David.6 (The rending of the kingdom, and
the backslidings and often wholesale lapses into idolatry
of the people, might seem to portend the ruin of these
hopes, and the frustration of the divine purpose. But the
singular — the unexampled — thing in the history of this
people is that the purpose of God in the history is not
1 Gen. iii. 15. Ottley says that this passage "strikes at the outset of
redemptive history the note of promise and of hope." — Hist, of Hebs. p. 11.
Cf. Driver, Genesis, pp. 49, 67.
2 Gen. ix. 26. * Gen. xii. 8 ; cf. xviii. 18 ; xxii. 18.
4 Gen. xlix. 10. On the interpretation, cf. Driver, Genesis, pp. 386,
410-14 ; Orelli, O.T. Prophecy, pp. 118-23, etc.
' • 2 Sam. vii.

38 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
defeated by outward failure; rather, it is in the depth of
adversity and seeming defeat that it asserts itself most
clearly, enlarges, purifies, and spiritualises itself, and is
never, in the prophets, more confident of victory than when,
to the eye of sense, the cause of the kingdom of God
appears hopelessly lostTJ
We need not pursue this proof of a teleologioal character
in the history of Israel further. i The same result would be
obtained if, starting with the completed revelation, we
looked at the history retrogressively. Not only does the
Gospel of the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed unfold
itself from the bosom of the Jewish community, but the
whole consciousness of Jesus roots itself in the older revela
tion, — presupposes it, moves in the circle of its ideas, claims
to be the fulfilment of it. It was not the prophets only that
Jesus came to fulfil, but " the law and the prophets," 1 — the
whole Old Testament revelation. If we go back to the
prophetic age, we find the prophets as uniformly basing
their message on the covenant relation of Israel to Jehovah
which the earlier history attests.2 The national conscious
ness of Israel connects itself unalterably with Moses and
the Exodus, and with the laws and statutes it then received
from Jehovah ; yet with not less distinctness it declares that
the national stage in its history was not the earliest, but
was preceded .by the patriarchal, and by the covenants with
the fathers. £ Israel's God was the God of Abraham, of Isaac,
and of Jacob. The starting-point in its covenant history
was not Moses, but Abraham.8 There is thus displayed
throughout the whole of these Old Testament Scriptures
a historical continuity, a firmness and coherence of texture,
a steadily evolving, and victorious, self-fulfilling purpose,
which has nowhere, even in the remotest degree, its parallel
in the history of religions. 7
IV. Unique Ideas of the Religion
Thus far we have looked at the book and at the history
of Israel's religion, and have found in both a character for
1 Matt. v. 17.
3 E.g., Amos ii. 4, 10; iii. 1, 2; Hos. viii. 1 ; xi. 1-4; Mic. vi. 4;
Isa. i. 2 ; v. 1-7 ; xi. 16 ; li. 1, 2, 10 ; Jer. ii. 17, eto.
' Isa. xxix. 22 ; li. 1 ; Jer. xxxiii. 26 ; Ezek. xxxiii, 24 ; Mic. vii. 20.
See on this below, pp. 94 ff .

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 39
which no proper parallel can be discovered elsewhere : we
now _ advance a stage further, and inquire whether the
religion itself does not present a similar uniqueness.
Only those who have not truly entered into its spirit, or
appreciated its relation to other forms of belief, will
dispute the proposition that the religion of Israel is
unique. It is not the fact of its uniqueness, but whether
the uniqueness is of such a kind as to require us to
postulate a special, supernatural cause for its explanation,
which is matter of controversy. We shall see immedi
ately what the Old Testament itself has to say on that
point. 1. A unique religion will display its character equally
by what it has and by what it wants. There are, on the
negative side, many things absent in Israel's religion which
we should expect to find there, if it was simply one among
other religions. Resemblances, as before remarked, in out
ward respects, there necessarily are. In the religion of Israel
we have a sanctuary, priesthood, altars, sacrifices, ritual —
much more that has its counterpart in other cults. When,
however, from this outward vesture of the religion, we
come to its heart and essence, it is not the resemblances,
but the contrasts, which impress us. We are not disposed
to be stinted in our acknowledgment of the better
elements in the ethnic religions ; but, whatever place may
be given to these, the fact remains that, in their historical
forms, the higher elements are hardly visible, while the
foreground is occupied by an idolatrous worship, an ex
travagant and often immoral mythology, customs and
usages debasing to the last degree. We need only recall
the spirit-worship and magic of Babylonia; the animal-
worship and ancestor-worship of Egypt ; the stone-worship,
and tree-worship, and serpent-worship, the human sacrifices,
the lustful rites, the self-immolations, which enter so deeply
into most non-Biblical religions. How great the contrast
when we come to the religion of Israel! We do
not enter into details at present, for we shall have to
return to the subject in dealing with the very different
theory of the critical school, that Israel began practically
on the same level, and with much the same beliefs and
practices, as its heathen neighbours, and only late in its
history, in the days of the prophets, attained to higher

40 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
conceptions.1 It will not be contended, at least, that this is
the view of things that meets us on the face of the religion.
Few will be bold enough to maintain that tree-worship,
stone-worship, serpent-worship, image-worship, and similar
superstitions, are conspicuous features on the Bible page.
These things, we grant, or some of them, are found in the
Bible history — in patriarchal and Mosaic times in sparse
traces ; later, in times of general declension, when the
people fell away into the idolatries and vices of the nations
around them, more abundantly; but they are no proper
part of Israel's religion, and are invariably resisted,
denounced, and condemned, as apostacy from Jehovah.
Idolatry is sternly condemned in the oldest code of laws : 8
divination, necromancy, consulting with familiar spirits,
are, prohibited ; 8 the instances in which contrary practices
appear, as Rachel's teraphim,4 Micah's images,6 Saul's con
sulting of the witch of Endor,6 etc., are sporadic and
occasional, and appear either as survivals of older super
stitions, or as violations of fundamental principles of
the religion, such as are met with in every age and
country.7 2. We do not dwell longer on these negative features
of Israel's religion, but turn to the positive side, in which,
naturally, the clearest proof of its uniqueness must lie.
Here it may be sufficient to fix attention on three great
fundamental ideas, in which, perhaps, the contrast between
it and other forms of religion is most distinctly to be traced.
(1) We take, first, what meets us on the surface — the
monotheism of this Israelitish religion. This of itself is
much, if we think of the polytheism and idolatry which
everywhere else overspread the earth. We look to the
religions of ancient Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt, or
1 See Chaps. IV. p. 86 ; V. pp. 133 ff. ¦ Ex. xx. 4, 5 ; xxiii. 4.
* Deut. xviii. 9-14.
4 Gen. xxxi. 34 (stolen from her father Laban, ver. 30).
' Judg. xvii.
* 1 Sam. xxviii. The fact that Saul had put down all witches and
wizards is proof of the law.
7 Kuenen objects that the current conceptions of Israel's religion are
drawn, not from the facts, but from the general reviews of the Hebrew
historians. — Nat. Religions, etc. (Hibbert Lectures), pp. 69 ff. Professor
Robertson aptly replies that, if we turn to these reviews, " they are precisely
in the tone of the prophets Amos and Hosea, the very earliest witnesses to
whom we are allowed to appeal." — Early Rel. of Israel, p. 116.

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 41
to those of Israel's own kinsfolk and neighbours in and
around Palestine ; * and, while recognising higher elements
in these religions, ever, however, becoming dimmer as we
recede from their source, we find them, one and all, in
historical times, grossly, growingly, and incurably, poly
theistic and corrupt. In Judah alone was God known.
In no single case, moreover, was this polytheism ever thrown
off by inherent effort. Even, therefore, were the theory,
favoured by modern critics, that "ethical monotheism"
was only attained by Israel in the age of the great prophets,
allowed to be established, the fact would still remain to be
accounted for that Israel, alone of all nations, did attain to
it, and became the teacher of the rest of the world. We
do not, however, give our adherence to the view that
this monotheism of the religion of Israel was a late develop
ment of the time of the prophets. As will be shown more
fully in a subsequent chapter,2 the Old Testament knows of
no time when the people of Israel were without the know
ledge of the one God as the Creator and providential Ruler
of the whole world. Monotheism is not the doctrine of
one part of the Old Testament, and not of another. Its
oldest parts — those which the critics allow to be the
oldest 8 — have this doctrine of the unity of God as well as
the latest. In these oldest parts, we have as fundamental
ideas the creation of the world by God, the unity of the
human family as descended from a first pair, made by God,
the destruction of the whole race by a flood on account of
sin, the promises to Noah, embracing the whole earth,4
a new descent and distribution of the race from Noah, the
recognition of God by Abraham as the Judge of the whole
earth,5 — all laying the foundation for the call of Abraham,
the covenants with the patriarchs, the growth of Israel into
a nation, its redemption from bondage, and formation into
a people for God's glory. While, therefore, it is not
contended that there was no advance in the ideas of God, —
no deepening, purifying, or spiritualising of these ideas,
— from the days of Abraham and Moses, it may very con
fidently be maintained that, in the Old Testament as we
1 As respects the Semitic peoples, cf. Professor G. A. Smith's Modern
Criticism, pp. 111-29.
2 Chap. V. pp. 123 ff. * The J and E histories, see pp. 65-S6.
4 Gen. viii. 20, 21 ; ix. • Gen. xviii. 25.

42 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
have it, the unity of God is present as a basal conception
from the first.
(2) The monotheism of Israel, however, is not the whole,
is not even the main thing, in this religion. It is not so
much, after all, in its declarations of what God is in
Himself, or of the unity of God, as in what it tells us of
the relations of God to man, and of His purposes of grace to
the world, that the peculiarity of the religion of the Old
Testament lies.1 No religion exalts man so high as the
religion of the Bible, in representing him as made in the
image of God, and capable of knowing, loving, and serving
God ; and no religion abases man so low, in picturing the
depths of his apostacy from God, and his inability to deliver
himself from the guilt and bondage in which that apostacy
has involved him. But it is the glory of the religion of
the Bible — this in both Old Testament and New — that over
against the picture it gives of the developing sin and cor
ruption of the race, there appears almost from its first
page the developing plan and purpose of God for man's
salvation.2 The history of the Bible is essentially, what
Jonathan Edwards called it, " the history of redemption."
If the malady is aggravated, the remedy provided is
adequate to cope with it, even on the Bible's own showing
of its evil. In Paul's language, " Where sin abounded, grace
did abound more exceedingly."8 This again brings us to
the idea of teleology, but now shows us more precisely in
what the teleology consists. It is the unfolding in its suc
cessive stages of God's gracious counsel for man's salvation.4
It is this which gives its unity to the Bible ; which is the
golden thread running through history, psalm, prophecy,
Gospel, epistle, and binding all together. There is nothing,
again, which even remotely resembles this in any other
religion. The partial exception is the Zoroastrian, which,
in a dim, mythological way, has the idea of a conflict of the
good principle with the evil, and of a final triumph of the
1 Cf. Kirkpatriok, Divine Library, p. 93.
8 See below, pp. 61-62. * Rom. v. 20.
* Cf. Ottley, Aspects of O.T., pp. 55 ff. : "The Old Testament is to be
studied, in the first place, as a record of the history of redemption. It
contains the account of a continuous historical ' movement of which the
originating cause was the grace of God, and the aim the salvation of the
human race." On p. 93 : "In the Pentateuch and the historical books, the
two most prominent ideas are those of redemption and revelation."

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 43
good. _ But, apart from the fact that, as was inevitable on
a dualistic basis, good and evil are in Zoroastrianism largely
physical conceptions, the idea receives no development, is
the subject of no history, is embodied in no plan which is
historically carried out. The uniqueness of the Biblical
religion appears only the more strikingly from the
contrast. (3) The aim of God's salvation, of His entire work of
grace in humanity, is, that man shall be made holy?- This
brings us to a third marked feature in the religion of the
Old Testament, as of the Biblical religion generally — the
indissoluble relation it establishes between religion and
morality. Religions can readily be found which have no
close connection with morality ; we are familiar also with a
morality which would fain make itself independent of
religion. In few of the higher religions, however, is this
relation between religion and morality altogether obscured.
Throughout history there is generally some dim perception
that the gods will protect and reward the good, and will
not fail to punish the evil-doer. The peculiarity of the
Biblical religion is that in it this idea of the connection of
religion with morality is the all-dominating one. To minds
awakened to the significance of the moral it may now
appear self-evident that a religion has no real worth which
does not ally itself with moral ends, — which, going beyond
even external guardianship and sanction of duties, does not
take morality up into itself as the expression of the will
and character of God, and count moral obedience an
essential part of His service. But it should not be forgotten
that this was not always the view taken of religion, and
that it is largely through the influence of the religion of
the Bible, purifying and ennobling our conceptions, that we
have now come to perceive even this truth as clearly as we
do. Already in its first pages — before the word " holy " is
yet met with — the Old Testament sets itself against sin in
heart and deed.2 God accepts and vindicates righteous men
like Abel, Enoch, and Noah ; overwhelms with His judgments
a world corrupted by sin; destroys wicked cities like
Sodom and Gomorrah. He requires that Abraham shall
walk before Him and be perfect ; Abraham's assurance
1 Cf. Dillmann, Alttest. Theol. p. 42.
2 See below, pp. 114-15.

44 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
about Him is that the Judge of all the earth will do right.1
As revelation advances, the indissolubleness of this con
nection of religion and morality becomes only clearer. The
ethical was never so exalted; the ideals of conduct were
never raised so high; religion and duty were never so
completely fused together, as in the pure and sublime
precepts of psalms and prophets. " He hath showed thee,
O man, what is good, and what doth Jehovah require of
thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly
with thy God."2 A religion of this kind, so high in its
views of God, so true to the needs of man, so adequate in its
provisions for man's deliverance, so holy in its spirit, so
exalted in its moral demands, never emanated, we may be
sure, from man's own devisings. It is too high for him ; he
could not attain to it. Even if he could have conceived the
idea of it, he could not have translated it into fact and
history as is done in the Scriptures.
V. Claim to an Origin in Revelation
This, accordingly, is the next thing which impresses us
in our study of the Old Testament, — the consciousness
which everywhere pervades it that this religion, the
historical stages of which it unfolds to us, is not the
creation of man's own spirit, but is a product of special
divine revelation. The tendency of the modern mind, it
was before seen, is to substitute psychology for revelation.
Instead of God's word to Isaiah, or John, or Paul, it gives
us the thoughts of Isaiah, or John, or Paul about God.
Even where the word " revelation " is used, it is with this
purely psychological connotation.8 This, however, is not
the Bible's own point of view. The Bible is not primarily
a record of man's thoughts about God, but a record of what
God has done and revealed of Himself to man. Its basis is
not, " Thus and thus thinks man," but, " Thus and thus saith
Jehovah," or, "Thus and thus Jehovah has done." It
records, indeed, man's thoughts about God — his prayers,
struggles, hopes, meditations, aspirations — but these spring
always out of what God has made known of Himself in
word and deed. The Bible is not a mere revelation of
1 Gen. xvii. 1, xviii. 25, eto.
* Mic. vi. 8. * See above, p. 21.

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 45
abstract, or what Lessing would call " eternal," truths about
God, but above all a discovery of the way in which God has
revealed His loving will to man in word and deed in history.
" He made known His ways unto Moses, His doings unto
the children of Israel." x It is this, we would here observe,
which makes the historical element in Scripture so indis
pensable and precious, and warns us against the tendency
to speak slightingly of it, as if myth and legend would
serve the purposes of revelation equally with fact.2
Everyone feels that this is not the case with the history
of Christ in the Gospels ; but in the Old Testament also it
is in great measure true that it was not from inward in
tuition, or reflections of their own, that prophets and
psalmists, or the ordinary pious Israelite, derived their
knowledge of God, and assured confidence in Him, but from
what God had revealed of Himself in the past history of
the j>eople.8 The acts were the source, the medium, the
authorisation of the knowledge ; and, if these were taken
away, the knowledge would disappear with them. Accord
ingly, we find that, in the highest point which the saint of
the Old Testament can reach in the apprehension of this
revelation, he still feels that it transcends him, is infinitely
above him, in a way which anything proceeding from his
own thoughts could not be. Thus : " Many, 0 Jehovah my
God, are Thy wonderful works which Thou hast done, and
Thy thoughts which are to us- ward: they cannot be set
in order unto Thee: if I would declare and speak of
them, they are more than can be numbered." 4 Or again :
" My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways
My ways, saith Jehovah. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and
My thoughts than your thoughts." 6
Here, then, we strike on another great peculiarity of
Israel's consciousness — the sense, viz., that it was the
1 Ps. ciii. 7.
sThus, e.g., Schultz, O.T. Theol. i. pp. 17-23: "In fact, legend must
be regarded as fitted in a higher degree than history to be the medium of
the Holy Spirit." Would Schultz apply this to the history of Jesus in the
Gospels ? See Note B on Mythology and History in the Old Testament.
* Cf. W. E. Smith, Prophets, pp. 10-14 ; Ladd, Doct. of Sac. Scripture,
i. pp. 737 ff. ; Bruce, Chief End of Revelation, pp_. 57 ff. This connecting
of revelation with acts of God is the strong point made in Rothe's Zur

* Ps. xl. 5. ' Isa. lv. 8, 9.

46 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
possessor and guardian of a quite peculiar revelation from
God, and in this respect occupied a perfectly unique
position among the nations of the earth. The answer to
this, we know, is thought to be simple. It is often said by
those who believe all religions to be equally a natural
growth : " Every nation in the beginning of its history has
its wonderful stories to tell of miracles, revelations, appari
tions of the gods : all religions in this respect are much the
same : the Jewish and Christian religions are just like the
rest." But we would take the liberty to reply : That is not
quite the case. There is no other nation on earth which
has such a story to tell of the beginnings of its religion —
even as a story, we mean — as the Israelite had to tell of
his, and the Israelite was perfectly conscious of this
absolutely unique character of his history. Mythologies,
fables, legends of appearances of the gods there are in
abundance ; but no such orderly, coherent history, charged
with great ideas, as that which meets us in the Bible.
This consciousness of the absolutely exceptional character
of the history is brought out very strikingly in one passage
in the Book of Deuteronomy. Moses there speaks: "For
ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee,
since the day that God created man upon the earth, and
from the one end of the heaven unto the other, whether
there hath been any such thing as this great thing is, or
hath been heard like it ? Did ever people hear the voice
of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast
heard, and live ? Or hath God assayed to go and take Him
a nation from the midst of another nation, by temptations,
by signs, and by wonders, and by war, and by a mighty
hand, and by a stretched-out arm, and by great terrors,
according to all that Jehovah your God did for you in
Egypt before your eyes? Unto thee it was shewed, that
thou mightest know that Jehovah He is God : there is none
else beside Him."1 If this be true of the origin of the
religion of Israel, 'it is still more true of the origin of
Christianity; for, assuredly, no other religion is founded
on such a history as that of Jesus Christ, — on the character,
claims, work, life, death, and resurrection, of such a Person
as Jesus Christ is, — no, not in all the world !
The truth is, it is vain to attempt to find a parallel for
1 Deut. iv. 32-35 ; cf. vers. 6-8.

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 47
this wholly unique phenomenon of the religion of Israel
Take again the two points already mentioned : the mono
theism of this religion, and the indissoluble connection it
establishes between religion and morality. It is not
uncommon to hear this monotheistic faith spoken of as if
it were a stage which, given only favourable conditions,
every nation was bound to reach in the course of its
development.1 Man begins, it is supposed, by worshipping
spirits, or ghosts of ancestors, or something of the kind;
then mounts to the conception of a tribal deity; then
extends the power of this deity, or blends the deity with
others, till he is viewed as the sole ruler of the world. But,
unfortunately, the facts do not bear out this ingenious
theory. It has frequently been pointed out that there are,
even yet, only three monotheistic religions in the world —
the Jewish, the Christian, and the Mohammedan, which,
in this respect, is derived from the other two. That is to
say, all the monotheistic religion there is in the world is
derived from the religion of the Bible. It is not meant
that, beneath and behind the polytheism of older religions,
there are not many indications of a purer monotheistic
consciousness, or that there have not often been, in indi
viduals and schools, very remarkable approximations to the
truth about the unity, power, wisdom, goodness, and
providence of God.2 In that sense God has never left
Himself without witness. But it is a well-understood truth
that philosophical speculations have never founded, or can
found, a religion ; and it is simple fact of history that no
monotheistic religions — religions, that is, based on the unity
and spirituality of God as fundamental articles — have ever
arisen, except those above mentioned.
Or take the other point — the indissoluble blending of
morality and religion. Where, again, do we find anything
corresponding to this outside the Biblical revelation ? One
of the early fathers of the Church gives us a description
of an Egyptian temple — lofty, spacious, gorgeous, inspiring
the worshipper by its grandeur with solemn awe. You
1 Kuenen, e.g., says : "To what we might call the universal, or at least
the common rule, that religion begins with fetishism, then develops into
polytheism, and then, but not before, ascends to monotheism — that is to
say, if this highest stage be reached [a very important proviso] — to this rule
the Israelites are no exception, "' — Rel. of Israel, i. p. 225.
2 See p. 128 below.

48 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
enter the precincts of the temple, but when the priest, with
grave air, draws aside the veil that hides the inner shrine,
you behold — what ? A cat; a crocodile, a serpent, or
other animal, rolling on a purple couch.1 Visit now the
temple of Jehovah at Jerusalem. Here, too, you have a
gorgeous building ; here, too, a priesthood, altars, a shrine
hidden by a veil. Within the veil stands the ark of the
covenant, covered by the mercy-seat,- sprinkled with blood
of atonement, and shadowed by the golden cherubim. Let
that covering be lifted, and within that ark, in the very
core and centre of Israel's religion, in its most sacred place,
you find— what ? The two tables of the moral law. There,
in a word, is the contrast of the two religions. There is
the declaration of the truth that, before and above all
things else, Israel's is an ethical religion. For these are
" the tables of the testimony " 2 — the basis and bond of the
nation's covenant with God — and all the ritual of ceremonial
institutions is but a scaffolding to protect this ethical core
from injury, or a means of restoring the worshipper to
favour when sin has disturbed his fellowship. It will be
remembered that, when Jesus came, He did not cut Himself
off from that older revelation, but declared that on its two
commandments of love to God and love to man hung all
the law and the prophets.8
VI. Revelation in Relation to its Record
If we thus let the Bible — Old Testament and New —
speak for itself, and compare it part with part : still more
if we yield ourselves to its power, and strive faithfully to
follow its directions, the conviction will irresistibly grow
upon us that it is right when it claims to be based on
divine revelation. Out of that revelation, the literature of
revelation, which we call the Bible, grows. If this fact be
firmly apprehended, particular questions about the dates or
placing of books will not much trouble us. The revelation is
there, and no changes in the dates or placing of books — none
at least that are likely to be permanently brought out — can
do anything to alter its fundamental outlines. If a revela
tion has been given, it is surely the most natural thing in
1 Clem. Alex. Pad. iii. 2.
a Ex. xxxii. 15. See below', Chap. VI. pp. 152 ff. » Matt. xxii. 40

ITS OWN POINT OF VIEW 49
the world to expect that a record should be made or kept
of the stages of that revelation, either by its original
recipients, or by those who stood within the circle of
revelation, and possessed in an eminent degree its spirit.1
That such a literature exists, adequate in every respect for
making known to us the revelation, animated and pene
trated by its spirit, though in varying degrees, — for the
strictest upholder of inspiration will hardly place the Books
of Chronicles on the same level with the Gospel of St. John,
. — fitted as a whole infallibly to accomplish its great end of
making men wise unto salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ, and of completely furnishing the man of God unto
every good work,2 — that such a literature exists, the only
ultimate proof that can be given is the existence of the
book itself ; and such a book, as we have seen even from
this brief inspection of its character, we have in the Bible.
The simple fact that in this sacred volume, so marvellous
in its own structure, so harmonious and complete in the
view it gives of the dealings of God with man, so rich and
exhaustless in its spiritual content, so filled with the mani
fest presence and power of the Spirit of God, we have every
thing we need to acquaint us fully with the mind and will of
God for our salvation, and to supply us for all the ends of
our spiritual life, is sufficient evidence that the revelation
which God has given is, in every essential particular, purely
and faithfully embodied in it. No more than the revela
tion from which it springs, is the Bible a product of mere
human wisdom, but has God for its inspiring source !
This, as we understand it, is the Bible's own test of its
inspiration, alike in Old Testament and in New,8 and by
it, without nearer definition, we are content, for our present
purpose, to abide. The subject is taken hold of by its
wrong end, when the test of inspiration is sought primarily
1 "What would be the conceivable nature of revealed religion, without a
record of facts ? The briefest consideration convinces us, that either the
whole nature of revelation must be essentially changed, or else a record of
its historic process must somehow be preserved. To be sure, the fact of
ultimate and supreme importance is the fact of revelation itself. But the
very nature of revelation, if it is to take the form of an historic process, is
Buch as to demand a record of that process. The foundations of Christianity
are historically laid," etc.— Ladd, Doct. of Sac. Script, i. p. 737.
» 2 Tim. iii. 15-17.
» Cf., e.g., Deut. xxx. 10-16 ; Josh. i. 7, 8; Pss. i., xix. 7-14, cxix.;
John xiv. 26 ; xx. 31 ; Rom. xv. 4, etc.

50 THE OLD TESTAMENT FROM
in minute inerrancy in external details, as those of
geography, or chronology, or of physical science. Inspira
tion does not create the materials of its record: it works
upon them.1 The crucial question is. — Do the qualities
which inspiration is expressly declared to confer on
Scripture — e.g., in such a classical passage as 2 Tim. iii
15-17 — really belong to it ? We think it will be difficult
for any candid mind to deny that they do. Who, coming
to this sacred book, with a sincere desire to know God's
will for the direction of his life, will say that he cannot
find it? Who, desiring to be instructed in the way of
salvation "through faith which is in Christ Jesus," will
consult its pages, and say it is not made plain to him ?
Who, coming to it for equipment of his spiritual life, will
say that there are still needs of that life which are left
unprovided for? Who, seeking direction in the way of
the life everlasting, can doubt that, if he faithfully obeys
its teaching, he will reach that goal ? The Scripture fulfils
the ends for which it was given ; no higher proof of its
inspiration can be demanded.2
VII. Relation of the Old Testament to Christ
There is but one further remark we would make in
closing this chapter. It relates to the place which Christ
holds in Scripture, and ought to have in our study of every
part of it. If what has been said of divine revelation is
true, it follows that everything else in Scripture has its
centre and point of connection in Him. If the Bible is a
structure, Christ is the corner stone in that structure. All
else in it is designed to lead up to Him, while in knowing
Him, in learning to see in Him the image and revelation
of the Father, in being drawn into sympathy with His
1 See Note C on Inspiration and the Materials of the Record.
1 Cf. Westcott, Bible in the Church, p. 14: "The Bible contains in
itself the fullest witness to its divine authority. If it appears that a
large collection of fragmentary records, written, with few exceptions,
without any designed connection, at most distant times and under the
most varied circumstances, yet combine to form a. definite whole, broadly
separated from other books ... if in proportion as they are felt to be
separate they are felt also to be instinct with a common spirit ; then it
will be readily acknowledged that, however they were united afterwards
into the sacred volume, they are yet legibly stamped with the divine seal
as ' inspired of God ' in a sense in which no other writings are."

ITS OWN POINT OF VffiW 51
Spirit, in tasting the grace of His salvation, — in coming
to know that in Him we possess "the true God and
eternal life,"1 — we gain the key which sets all else in
Scripture in its true light. Without this key we are
bound to miss our way in the search for its secret. No
learning, no cleverness, will enable us to find it out. In
vain do we go to the Old Testament, or to any part of
Scripture, for the satisfaction of a mere intellectual or
literary curiosity. It was not for this it was given, but
to conduct us into the presence of Him who, of God, is
made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification,
and redemption.2 What the closing verse of the 20th
chapter of John's Gospel says of that book : " But these are
written, that ye .may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the
Son of God, and that believing ye may have life through
His name," 3 may with equal truth be applied to the Bible
as a whole. Christ is the central sun in that firmament :
only when we are brought within the range of His beams
have we the light of life.
1 1 John v. 20. s 1 Cor. i. 30. • John xx. 81.

CHAPTER III
Ube ©lb XTestament as aftecteo bs Criticism—
E. XTbe Ibistorg: argument from Critical
premises

"The Bible is through and through of historical nature and spirit." —
Ewald. "For what is the Old Testament from the Christian point of view —
and from no other point of view can it be rightly understood — but the
record of God's gradual revelation of Himself to Israel in His purpose of
redeeming love with a view to the establishment of His universal kingdom t
The Incarnation was to be the culminating point of that revelation and
that purpose." — A. F. Kirkpatkick.
"On the other hand, writers of the liberal school in Germany take so
completely for granted, — either on mere critical grounds, or because they
assume from the first the utter impossibility of miracles or supernatural
revelations, — the unhistorical character and non-Mosaic origin of the greater
portion, at least, if not the whole, of the Pentateuch, that they do not
generally take the trouble to test the credibility of the story, by entering
into such matter-of-fact inquiries as are here made the basis of the whole
argument. " — Colbnso.
" We nevertheless firmly maintain that the preceding history of Israel,
from the Elohistic account of the creation to the history of Joseph, was
written in ancient pre-exilian times." — Dblitzsch.
" Kuenen's name for the book [JE] with which we are dealing, viz.,
the ' Prophetic ' narrative, is scarcely happy. Some of its most remarkable
elements are, as Kuenen himself points out, pre-prophetic. . . . The two
books evidently proceeded in parallel lines of narrative, and it is often hard
— nay, impossible — to say whether a particular seotion of the Hexateuch
belongs to the Jahvist or the Elohist." — Addis.

CHAPTER III
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
—I. THE HISTORY: ARGUMENT FROM CRITICAL
PREMISES
Long ere this point is reached, loud protests will have
been raised against the flagrantly " uncritical " character of
our procedure, as shown in our ignoring of those well-
established results of scholarship which have had the
effect of shivering the supposed unity of the Old Testament,
and of destroying the credibility of its narratives, especially
of those which have had most weight attached to them in
the history of revelation. We shall now do what we can
to remove this reproach by proceeding to inquire how far
the view of the Old Testament to which we have been led
by the consideration of its own structure is overthrown or
modified by the application of a really scientific criticism.
Further, that no undue advantage may be taken, or cause
given for complaint that the strength of the critical position
is overlooked, we propose, in the first instance, as indicated
in the preliminary sketch, to discuss the questions of the
history, and of the religion and institutions, of Israel, on
the basis of the critical theory itself, that is, with pro
visional assumption of the correctness of the ordinary
critical analysis and dating of books. The canvassing of
the critical theory on its merits will come after. But it is
well at the outset to see what follows, even if the generally-
accepted critical analysis, to its full extent, is admitted.
In this chapter and the next we shall deal with the history.
It is not necessary to repeat the caution formerly given,
that all critics are not offhand to be classed as of the same
mind on this and other subjects. There are, as we shall
constantly have occasion to see, more radical and more
moderate schools of criticism. But it has also in justice

56 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
to be recognised that it is largely the methods and con
clusions of the most radical school —the Graf-Kuenen-Well-
hausen school — which, without always the adoption of its
anti-supernaturalistic premises, have been imported into
English-speaking countries, are actively propagated under
the name "Higher Criticism," and chiefly rule the
current representations of Old Testament history and
religion.1 The late Professor W. R. Smith already claimed
in 1885 : " Almost every younger scholar of mark is on
the side of Vatke and Reuss, Lagarde and Graf, Kuenen
and Wellhausen " 2 — an ominous utterance for the Old
Testament. This is our justification, if one is needed, for
treating the radical school as representative.
I. Critical Assault on Old Testament History
We begin by looking at the general attitude of this
advanced school to the history of' the Old Testament.
1. It does not put the matter too strongly, then, to say
that, to the more radical school of critics, the Old Testament
is in the main unhistorical. Not necessarily, of course, that
there is not in parts — some would acknowledge in con
siderable parts — a historical substratum. Everyone may
not go so far, at one end of the history, as Stade, who
doubts whether Israel as a people was ever in Egypt at
all ; 3 or, at the other end, as Kosters, who denies the return
from the exile at Babylon under Zerubbabel.* But the
books as they stand are, for all that, held not to be, at
least till the days of the kings, and even then only very
partially, genuine history.
1 Cf. above, pp._ 12, 17. In proof we may refer generally to the Old
Testament articles in Hastings' Diet, of Bible (with exceptions) or Cheyne's
Encyc. Biblica ; to Addis and Carpenter on the Hexateuch ; to the volumes
on Joshua, etc., in "Polychrome Bible"; to those on Numbers, Judges,
Samuel, etc., in the "International Crit. Commentary"; to Professor
H. P. Smith's 0. T. History, in the " International Theological Library,"
and many other works of the same class.
J Preface to Wellhausen's Hist, of Israel (E.T.), p. vi.
* Geschichte, i. pp. 129-30.
4 In his Het herstel van Israel (1894), H. P. Smith adopts his theory,
O.T. Hist. chap. xvi. According to the latter writer, "the decree of Cyrus
is impossible," and "the theory of a return, of an interruption of the work,
of any interference by Darius, is contradicted by Haggai and Zechariah "
(p. 353). Of Ezra, if he existed, " we know nothing " (p. 396). See below,
Chap. IX. p. 295.

I. THE HISTORY 57
To illustrate : the Book of Genesis, we are told, is " a
book of sacred legend, with a mythical introduction." 1 It
yields us "no historical knowledge of the patriarchs, but
only of the time when the stories about them arose in
the Israelite people: this later age is here unconsciously
projected, in its inner and outer features, into hoar antiquity,
and is reflected there like a glorified mirage." 2 The " de
scriptions of the Exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the
desert, and the conquest and partition of Canaan ... to put
it in a word, are utterly unhistorical." 3 "Briefly described,
then, the Book of Joshua is an historical romance. . . . We
must lose much of the religious value the Book of Joshua
possesses while we treat it as history, and, indeed, until we
treat it as what it is — romance." 4 " The narrative gives
us exactly what did not occur at the conquest."5 The
Jehovistic writer in the Hexateuch (J) "feels himself in
an ideal fairy land in which no wonders are surprising." 6
The unfortunate Priestly writer (P), on the other hand, has
neither historical nor literary merit, and is refused credence
on all hands. Noldeke, we are told, made an end of him
"once for all"; but "Colenso is properly entitled to the
credit of having first torn the web asunder." 7 His names,
numbers, and precise details, which imposed even on such
good critics as Bleek, Hupfeld, and Knobel, " are not drawn
from contemporary records, but are the fruit solely of late
Jewish fancy, a fancy which, it is well known, does not
design nor sketch, but counts and constructs, and produces
nothing more than barren plans." 8 In brief : " We have no
really historical knowledge of a patriarchal period preceding
Israel's conquest of Canaan. The individuals, Abraham,
1 Schultz, O.T. Theol. i. p. 31.
a Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 318-19.
* Kuenen, Hexateuch, p. 42 (italics his). It is of this writer's work that
Professor W. R. Smith permitted himself to say : "His (Kuenen's) discussions
of the more complicated questions of Pentateuch analysis are perhaps the
finest things that modern criticism can show." — Preface to Wellhausen,
p. viii. 4 Professor G. B. Gray, in a review of Bennett's Joshua ("Polychrome
Bible "), 1899.
s H. P. Smith, 0. T. Hist. p. 332.
" F. H. Woods, art. "Hexateuch " in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 372. Cf. with
Dr. Driver's statement in his Genesis, p. xiv, quoted below, p. 105 : "The
patriarchal narratives are marked by great sobriety of statement and repre
sentation," etc.
» Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 347. ¦ Ibid. p. 348.

58 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Isaac, and Jacob, are eponyms — personifications of clans,
tribes, or ethnological groups — and they are nothing
more." 1
As respects the later books, a basis of political history
is necessarily recognised, but the books as we have them
are declared to be throughout unreliable and misleading.
" In Judges, Samuel, and Kings," we are told, " we are not
presented with tradition purely in its original condition:
already it is overgrown with later accretions. ... To vary
the metaphor, the whole area of tradition has finally been
uniformly covered with an alluvial deposit by which the con
figuration of the surface has been determined." 2 Here are a
few examples. On 1 Sam. vii. : " The mere recapitulation of
the contents of this narrative makes us feel at once what
a pious make-up it is, and how full of inherent impossi
bility."8 On 1 Sam. xix. 18-24: "We can scarcely avoid
the suspicion that what we have before us here is a pious
caricature ; the point can be nothing but Samuel's and David's
enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king."4 On the
Deuteronomic revision of Kings: "The most unblushing
example of this kind, a piece which, for historical worthless-
ness, may compare with Judges xix.-xxi., or 1 Sam. vii. seq.,
or even stands a step lower, is 1 Kings xxii." 6 On editorial
additions: "These valuable notes commence even with
Solomon, though here they are largely mixed with anecdotic
chaff." 6 Chronicles, of course, so far as it does not embody
extracts from older works, is regarded as past redemption.
It is the product of a " law-crazed " fancy, which effects " a
complete transformation of the original tradition." 7 " His
work must not be called history." 8 In the irreverence of
much of this, one is forcibly reminded of what Dr. Cheyne
says of the indebtedness of the newer criticism to eighteenth
century English Deism.9 The atmosphere into which we
are brought back is that of Morgan, and Bolingbroke, and
Hume, and the impression produced is correspondingly
painful.10 1 H. P. Smith, O.T. Hist. p. 48. *
2 Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 228.
8 Ibid. p. 248. * Ibid. p. 268.
• Ibid. p. 285. « Ibid. p. 286.
1 Ibid. pp. 195, 224. • H. P. Smith, O.T. Hist. p. 5.
* Founders of Criticism, pp. 1, 2.
10 We have not taken notice of the older mythological theories, e.g.

I. THE HISTORY 59
2. It will not be disputed, we think, that these extracts,
taken almost at random, fairly represent the views and
spirit of the majority of the books and articles written from
the newer critical standpoint, — certainly those of the most
influential representatives of the school, — but, as already
said, there are critics also of more positive tendency, who
contest these deductions of the extremer party, and take
much firmer ground on the historicity of the patriarchal
and Mosaic periods. Such, e.g., on the Continent, are
Konig, Strack, Kittel, Oettli, and many more.1 In England,
Dr. Driver, in his reverence and moderation of tone, repre
sents the mediating position of many believing scholars,
though he is obviously hampered by his adherence to the
Wellhausen basis. He argues for a historical " core " in the
patriarchal narratives, thinks, even, that there are " reasonable
grounds for concluding that the narratives are in substance
historical"; but comes in the end' to the rather lame
conclusion, that "it is still, all things considered, difficult
to believe that some foundation of actual personal history
does not underlie the patriarchal narratives." 2 The main
stream of the critical movement, however, is not to be held
in by these feeble barriers, and continues to spread itself
over the entire field of patriarchal and Mosaic history in a
broad flood of scepticism. /
3. What are the grounds on which this sweeping indict
ment against the Old Testament history, and specially the
those of Goldziher in his Mythology among the Hebrews, who takes the char
acters in Genesis and Judges to be sun-myths ; or of the newer extravagances of
Winckler, whose theories are favourably regarded by Dr. Cheyne {Nineteenth
Century, Dec. 1902). See Note A on Critical Extravagances.
1 In his Neueste Prinzipien Konig combats the views of Stade, Guthe, and
others, who would resolve the patriarchs into ' ' personifications " of tribes (see
below, pp. 88 ff.) ; Kittel defends the earlier history in his lecture (translated)
on The Babylonian Excavations csad Early Bible History, etc. Dillmann,
in his posthumously published Alttest. Theol. (pp. 77-78, 82-83), says: "We
have no right to explain these Genesis narratives as pure fiction, as so many
now do. . . . We mistake if we do not recognise that they rest in essentials
on sound historical recollection. . . . Even if none of their names had been
handed down to us, we would require to postulate such revelation-figures as
we have in Abraham and those who followed him. . . . The facts, therefore,
afford rational justification for the picture of the course of events given in
Genesis, at least in its main features (im grossen und ganzen)." Even
Dillmann, however, concedes a good deal more than is necessary.
a Genesis, pp. xiv, xlvii, lvii. Canon Cheyne, on the other hand, isseriously
disturbed at what he thinks to be the halting attitude and spirit of com
promise in Dr. Driver's Introduction. He thinks " his fences are weak, and
may at any moment be broken down." — Founders of Criticism, pp. 251 ff.

60 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
earlier part of it, is based? They are, as we shall see,
various : the late date of composition, the manifest legendary
character of the narratives, assumed variations and contra
dictions in the sources, supposed incompatibility with the
rudimentary state of religious belief in early times, and the
like. The historicity of the early narratives, it is held,
cannot be maintained in view of the fact, which criticism
is said to have established, that the Pentateuch (or with
Joshua, the Hexateuch) is composed of documents of late
date, based on tradition many centuries old — in the case of
the Exodus at least 500 or 600 years, in the case of the
patriarchs 1000 to 1300 years — which, therefore, cannot
be supposed to preserve accurately the memory of such
distant events.1 Kuenen, who here may be taken as repre
sentative, gives four special reasons for rejecting the
patriarchal narratives. They are : the religious ideas which
are ascribed to the patriarchs, insoluble chronological
difficulties, the familiar intercourse of the deity with the
patriarchs (" we are not in the habit of accepting as history
the legends which afford evidence of that belief "), and, " the
principal cause of hesitation," the persons who appear as
actors in the narratives "are all progenitors of tribes."2
We wonder how many readers of the Bible feel these
" obstacles " to be as " insurmountable " as they were to Dr.
Kuenen.3 Much of all this, in any case, as we shall soon
discover, is undiluted assumption: the criticism rests on
the theory, not the theory on the criticism. How obviously,
e.g., does the argument from " religious ideas " * rest on a
certain assumption as to the stage of religious knowledge of
the patriarchs — an assumption which has no warrant save
in the critic's own theory of the course of the development.5
1 Cf. Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 16, 17 ; Driver, Genesis, p. xliii ;
H. P. Smith, O.T. Hist. i. p. 7.
3 Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 108-9. Cf. below, pp. 88 ff.
3 Cf. Ladd, Doct. of Sacred Scripture, i. p. 362.
4 Dr. Driver also argues for an "idealisation " of the narratives, on the
ground that "in the days of the patriarchs religion must have been in
a relatively rudimentary stage" (p. lx). It is shown later (p. 115),
however, that it is not the case, as Kuenen argues, that the patriarchs are
represented as "not inferior to the prophets of the eighth century B.C., in
pureness of religious insight and inward personal piety."
6 Hommel says: "When we find that a whole school of evangelical
theologians do not hesitate to declare that a passage was composed at a later
date or interpolated, simply because they are unwilling to recognise the
existence of any high moral teaching or lofty conceptiqn Qf the Godhead prior.

I. THE HISTORY 61
Postponing meantime, however, the discussion of these
objections, we propose to proceed in more constructive
fashion, in setting forth, first, the grounds of our belief in the
substantial trustworthiness of the Old Testament history,
even under the limits prescribed by the critical hypothesis.
II. Ignoring of Teleologioal Element in the History
The critical treatment breaks down the Biblical narra
tives, disintegrates them, causes them to crumble to pieces.
But there are features in the narratives which resist this
treatment, and constitute a standing protest against it.
In the previous chapter we laid stress on the singular
character of " teleology " in the Hebrew history. It is
history dominated by the idea of purpose, and that a
purpose of grace — of redemption. There is little, if any,
recognition of this in the writers we have chiefly in view,
though, to do them justice, they do not seek to get rid of
the impression of the extraordinary and unique in Israel's
history. Still the necessity of explaining the development
out of purely natural factors causes a very different picture
to be given from that which the Old Testament itself
sketches.1 One looks in vain in Kuenen, or Wellhausen,
or Stade, or Gunkel, or in such an Old Testament History
as that of Professor H. P. Smith, for any perception of the
deeper ideas that lie in the Genesis narratives, or of their
organic relation to the rest of Scripture. To a developing
purpose of salvation they seem altogether blind. In this
their criticism is already self -condemned ; for what they
fail to see is discerned by many others, as keenly critical
as themselves. An example or two may be cited from such
critical writers, if only to show that this idea of purpose is
no hallucination of our own fancy, which we are seeking per
versely to import into the narratives. Dr. Kautzsch, of Halle,
in a lecture on The Abiding Value of the Old Testament,
thus writes : " The abiding value of the Old Testament lies
above all in this, that it guarantees to us with absolute
certainty the fact and the process of a divine plan and way
to the time of the prophets of the eighth or seventh centuries B.C., then,
in view of the facts adduced in the present volume, we cannot but regard
their attitude as a deplorably mistaken one, and hope that it may soon
become a thing of the past." — Anc. Heb. Trad. pp. 291-92.
1 See below, pp. 86, 133 ff.

62 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
of salvation, which found its conclusion and fulfilment in
the new covenant, in the Person and work of Jesus
Christ." *¦ Dillmann likewise sees in the Old Testament the
development of God's redemptive "plan." "So soon," he
says, "as man becomes untrue to his original idea, and,
forsaking the attitude of obedience to God, begins his
self-seeking way, there comes also to manifestation the
saving activity of God directed to this apostacy of the
creature. ... So soon as, and so long as, sin is in the
world, there is also a saving activity of God." 2 Dr. Driver
says of the narrator J : " The patriarchal history is, in his
hands, instinct with the consciousness of a great future:
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are vouchsafed in succession
glimpses of the divine plan."3 Kautzsch, again, just quoted,
says of his (two) J writers : " Both relate the primeval
history from the standpoint of a history of redemption." *
To all this, so far as it is admitted, the reply which
comes from the side of the criticism that seeks to get rid
of the teleological element in the history is, that the
Biblical representation is an unreal and artificial one : not
a development in accordance with the actual history, but
an imaginary development, the result of a reading back into
the primitive legends of the ideas of the prophetic age.
The appearance of development is superimposed on the
historical tradition by the manner in which its materials
are manipulated. Grant, it is said, the critical scheme — its
analysis and partition of documents — and the illusion of
teleology in the Old Testament story disappears ; so far at
least as any extraordinary cause is required to account for it.
In the words of Professor Robertson : " What they maintain
is, that the scheme of the Biblical writers is an afterthought,
which, by a process of manipulation of older documents, and
by a systematic representation of earlier events in the light
of much later times, has been made to appear as if it were
the original and genuine development." 5
1 Die Bleibende Bedeutung des A. T., p. 28.
2 Alttest. Theol. p. 411. See whole section.
* Genesis, p. xxi ; cf. pp. lxx ff.
4 Lit. of O.T., p. 38. See also Ottley's Aspects of the O.T., pp. 56 ff. ;
McFadyen's Messages of the Prophetic and Priestly Historians, pp. 27 ff.
on " Tne Progress of the Divine Purpose in the Book of Genesis."
' Early Religion, p. 30. Most critics agree with the above view, so far
•¦ the reading back of prophetic ideas into the narratives is concerned.

I. THE HISTORY 63
Now we do not wish to shirk any real difficulty : we do
not really feel that there is any difficulty here that needs to
be shirked. We shall not even at this stage, as before said,
raise any objection to the currently-accepted critical view.
We are prepared to assume provisionally that, within
reasonable limits, that view is correct. But we ask — Is it
the case that, if the general critical hypothesis be granted,
this organic unity of the history, with the remarkable
teleologioal character which we have seen to belong to it,
disappears, or is shown to be an illusion ? It is there in
the Old Testament as it stands:1 can it be got rid of by
any skilful dividing up, or re-dating, of documents, or sup
posed later touching-up, interpolation, or re-editing? We
answer that question very confidently in the negative.
1. For, in the first place, this teleologioal character we
speak of is not a thing upon the surface of the Biblical
history, — not a thing that could be produced by any number
of editorial touchings and interpolations, and ingenious
piecing together of fragments, — but is ingrained into the
very substance of the history, is part of its texture, is, to
use the happy figure of Bushnell about the image of Christ
in the Gospels, like a watermark.in paper, which cannot be
destroyed without destroying the paper itself. It is not the
ingenuity of the writer in arranging his materials, but the
facts of the history and development of the people, which
work out this plan for us. It makes little difference how
far we multiply the parts ; the singular thing is that, when
the parts are put together, this remarkable appearance of
teleology should present itself. If the critic persists:
" That depends on your way of arranging the materials : let
me arrange them my way, and this appearance of develop
ment will be destroyed " ; it is a fair reply to make that, if
the Biblical way of arranging the materials brings out a
manifest divine design, whereas his yields only confusion,
this of itself is a good reason for thinking that the Biblical
way is probably the right one. Take an illustration. The
pieces of a child's puzzle map are put together to form,
say, the map of Europe. " Oh," says a bystander, " that is
because you have put the bits together in a particular way.
1 Wellhausen himself, we shall find, allows: "There is no primitive
legend it is well known, so well-knit as the Biblical one," and he speaks of
"the linked unity " of the narrative.— Hist, of Israel, pp. 285, 318.

64 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Let me arrange them in another way, and you will have no
map at all." Possibly ; but the fact that the pieces, when
so put together, form the map is the best proof that this
was the contriver's intention. But the map of Europe is a
small matter compared with this purpose of God wrought
out in the history of Israel from patriarchal times, and
culminating in Christ.
2. A second reason for our answer is, that, if the plan
inwrought into the history of Israel is an artificial or in
vented one, we have to find the mind capable of inventing
it. If anyone can bring himself to believe that the teleology
we meet with in Scripture — the divine plan of grace which
forms its connecting thread — is of so simple and superficial
a character that it would readily and naturally occur to any
casual collector of legends, or prophetically-minded man, in
the ninth or eighth century B.C., so that he could sit down and
work it into a whole history, and give it an appearance of
naturalness there, we can only say of such an one that he
has a very large faith, — a faith nearly as great as that of the
theorists who suppose that the portrait of Jesus in the
Gospels was created by a Church gathered promiscuously
out from Jews and Gentiles, working on the legendary
reminiscences of a good and wise teacher, when the real
image of Jesus had been forgotten ! The difficulty is tenfold
enhanced if we accept the descriptions furnished us by the
Wellhausen school of the state of prophetic orders in the age
when the narratives are supposed to have originated; and
further assume, with the newer critics, that the authors of
these narratives were not, as formerly believed, individuals,
but were "schools" of writers.1 This is how Wellhausen
speaks of the prophets before Amos : " In the time of Ahab
and Jehu the Nebiim were a widespread body, and organised
in orders of their own, but were not highly respected ; the
average of them were miserable fellows, who ate out of the
king's hand, and were treated with disdain by members of
the leading classes. Amos of Tekoa, who, it is true, belonged
to a younger generation, felt it an insult to be counted one
of them."2 Truly a likely soil for the growth of such
conceptions as we have in the Book of Genesis !
1 On this, see below, pp. 206 ff.
2 History of Israel, p. 293; cf. p. 461. See also Stade, Gcchichte, \.
pp. 476 ff,

I. THE HISTORY 65

III. Credibility of History on Premises op
Critical Theory
It is possible, however, we believe, on the premises of
the critical theory itself, to show that this " teleology " in
the history of Israel is not an invented or manipulated
thing, — an element which does not inhere naturally in
the facts, but a conception unhistorically imported into
them, — and to furnish strong reasons for belief in the
essential trustworthiness of the narratives. This we shall
now attempt to do. We confine attention to the Pentateuch,
or Hexateuch, in which most will admit that the crucial
part of the problem lies, and limit ourselves, at this stage,
to absolutely essential outlines and most general agreements.
The full discussion of particular points involved in the
theory belongs to later chapters.
We take, then, the history of things that lies before us
in our present Pentateuch, and ask what, on the critical
theory, is the origin of this book. Setting aside Deuteronomy,
commonly assumed to be a composition of the age of Josiah,1
we have, on the currently-accepted view, three main strands
of narrative in the Pentateuch, of which one — the Priestly
Writing (P) — is understood, in its present form, and principal
contents, to date from the time of the exile, or after. It
furnishes the "framework" of the Book of Genesis,2 and
contains, in the middle books, the Levitical legislation, to
which the slender thread of narrative and genealogy in the
earlier part serves as introduction.3 It is not supposed to
be an independent historical source, but in its narratives
— so Wellhausen thinks * — presupposes and runs parallel to
the other and earlier history books, J and E, by that time
united into one. Nothing is lost, therefore, by meanwhile
leaving this P portion aside, and confining ourselves to the
two older writings. The theory regarding these, in brief,
is, that they were originally separate, probably independent
productions, extending, with inclusion of the Book of Joshua,
to the conquest of Canaan, but latterly were combined with
1 Cf. Chap. VIII. 2 Dillmann, Genesis, i. p. 16. See below, pp. 215, 340 ff.
* See Wellhausen, History of Israel, p. 332, quoted below, p. 342.
*Ibid. pp. 295, 318. See below, p. 107. 'Th» ? narrative up to Ex. vi
is given by Wellhausen, pp. 327-32.
5

66 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
each other into something like the form in which we now
find them in the Pentateuch. They are allowed to be works
extremely similar in character, and largely parallel in
contents;1 but are marked, the one by the use of the
divine name Jehovah,2 the other by the use of the divine
name Elohim (God).3 Hence the designations J and E
applied to them respectively. One of these histories (J) is
commonly thought to have originated in the Southern
Kingdom of Judah ; the other (E) in the Northern Kingdom
of Israel.* How far they were the fixing of mere oral
tradition, or how far they rested on older written material, is
a moot question, to which different answers are given. It is
further a point in dispute which of these assumed narratives,
J or E, is the earlier ; 6 but it is agreed that, in the words
of Dr. Driver, " both belong to the golden period of Hebrew
literature."6 The stylistic and other differences between
them are slight ; whereas both present a strong contrast to
P, which is distinguished by marked peculiarities of style
and method.7
What are the dates of these books? On the current
view, we may say roughly, not later in their independent
form than the ninth and eighth centuries, or from 850 to
750 B.C. ; in combination a century or two later. Dr.
Driver may be usefully quoted on this point. " On the
relative date of E and J," he says, " the opinions of critics
differ. Dillmann, Kittel, and Riehm assign the priority to
E, placing him 900-850 B.C., and Jc. 750 (Dillmann), 830-
800 (Kittel), or c. 850 (Riehm). Wellhausen, Kuenen, and
Stade, on the other hand, assign the priority to J, placing
him 850-800 B.C., and E c. 750 B.C." In a footnote to the
'See below, pp. 218 ff.
3 Variously spelt by the critics, in its original form, Yahweh, Yahveh,
Jahweh, Jahveh, Yahve, etc. The form "Jehovah," arising from the com
bination of the Hebrew consonants with the vowels of the name " Adonai"
(see below, _ p. 228), was first introduced by the Franciscan friar Petrus
Galatinus, in 1518 A.D. It is, therefore, quite modern.
8 E is supposed to begin in Gen. xx. : according to some, earlier (chap. xv. ).
See below, p. 217.
* See Chap. VII. pp. 208 ff. 6 See Chap. VII. pp. 204 ff.
6 Introd. p. 124 : Wellhausen also says that JE "dates from the golden
age of Hebrew literature." — History of Israel, p. 9.
7 J is described as vivid, flowins, anthropomorphic : E as slightly less
so, more elevated, etc. P, on the other hand, is pragmatic, formal,
precise, statistical, genealogical, juristic, and abounds in words and phrases
peculiar to himself. See below, Chap. X. pp. 330 ff.

I. THE HISTORY 67
first of these sentences, he adds : " So most previous critics,
as Noldeke (J c. 900), Schrader (E 975-950 ; J 825-800),
Kayser (c. 800), Reuss (J 850-800 ; E ' perhaps still earlier ')."
And in a second note : " H. Schultz, O.T. Theology, i. pp. 66 ff.
(J to the reign of Solomon: E 850-800)." 1
Accepting provisionally this account of the documents,
we proceed to inquire what inferences may be deduced from
it as to the trustworthiness of the history.
1. And, first, we invite the attention of the reader to the
important fact, that, according to the dates given, these
writings antecede the age of written prophecy, and embody
the traditions which the Israelitish people possessed of its
history prior to that age. We do not ask at present
whether this tradition was oral, or was already in any
degree written. It was there, and these writings are the
literary depository of it, in somewhat the same way as the
Synoptic Gospels are the records of the oral teaching about
Christ in the apostolic age. It is customary to speak of
J and E as the reduction to writing of the popular legends
of the Israelites about their own past. Be it so: the
essential point is that they are at least not histories in
vented or doctored by prophets in the interests of a later
theory of the religious development. The more naive the
consciousness they exhibit, the less can they be regarded as
the products of reflective manipulation. In any case they
antecede the period of written prophecy.2 They cannot,
therefore, as regards their general character, be reasonably
assumed to be influenced, modified, or transformed, by the
ideas of that period. Their authors — the unknown J and E
— we are entitled to suppose, put faithfully down the
tradition as they found it in circulation among their people.
They might select according to predilection from the
material furnished to them, but they did not consciously
falsify or invent. It is a contradiction, in one breath to
speak of these writers as giving literary form to the current
1 Introd. p. 123. Further dates of interest are given below, pp. 73-74.
a "The general conclusions," says Dr. Driver, "to which a consideration
of all the facts has led critics ... are that the two sources, J and E,
date from the early centuries of the monarchy, J belonging probably to the
ninth and E to the early part of the eighth century B.C. {before Amos
or Hosea)." — Genesis, p. xvi. See below, p. 97. It will be seen after,
however, that this theory has come to be greatly modified in the interests of
later dating (see pp. 205 ff).

68 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
traditions of their nation, and in another to represent them
as elaborating and transforming the narratives to make
them the vehicles of the ideas of an age which, on the
hypothesis, had not yet come.
It could be wished that critical writers showed them
selves a little clearer here as to the imphcations of their
own admissions as to the dates of these J and E narratives.
Two representations cross and mingle continually in their
pages : one, that the writers of these narratives were simple
" collectors of legends," 1 as Grimm might collect the folk
tales of Germany; the other, that they were consummate
literary artists, altering, embellishing, and idealising their
material at pleasure: one, that the narrators are "pre-
prophetic" 2 that is, antecede the age of the great writing
prophets, when, we are told, "ethical monotheism" was
first introduced ; the other, that they were prophetic
narrators, instinct with the prophetic spirit, dominated by
prophetic ideas, and adepts in recasting their narratives to
make them express these ideas.8 Manifestly the critics
cannot have it both ways : on the one hand holding the low
views of Wellhausen, Kuenen, and Stade, on the state of
people and prophets in " pre-prophetic " Israel, and regard
ing " pure Jahvism " as the " creation " of Amos and Hosea ; 4
and on the other, picturing the ninth and eighth centuries
as already penetrated with lofty prophetic ideas, bringing to
the birth, and giving exquisite expression to, the elevated
conceptions which we find in Genesis and Exodus — writing
histories "from the standpoint of redemption." A choice
must be made, and either the books be brought down to an
age when prophetic ideas were in the ascendant, which
involves the abandonment of the given dates, or the con
tention be surrendered that these higher ideas first entered
1 "The Jahvist and the Elohist," says Addis, "were historians, or
rather collectors of national myths and legends, which passed for history."
— Hex. p. lxvi.
a " Both belong," says Bennett, "to the pre-Deuteronomic, pre-prophetic
stage of the religion of Israel." — Primer, pp. 11, 15. Cf. Wellhausen,
Hist, of Israel, p. 32 ; Addis, p. liii; Driver, Genesis, p. xlviii, etc.
8 Thus, e.g., Kautzsch, Lit. of O.T., pp. 35 ff. ; McPadyen, Messages,
etc., pp. 25, 26 ("Prophetic Documents '): Kuenen likewise uses this
designation {Hex. pp. 138 ff., 232ff.), but regards J and E as undergoing
extensive changes in a later " Judsean edition" (p. 248).
4 Or, with Duhm, Micah and Amos. "Micah and Amos," he says,
"first raised religion out of the sphere of nature Into that of morality:
thence it could develop higher." — Theol. d. Proph. p. 103.

I. THE HISTORY 69
with Amos and Hosea. The natural course would seem
to be to regard the writings as, indeed, " pre-prophetic " in
the sense of anteceding written prophecy, but at the same
time as faithfully recording the ancient tradition,1 in which
prophetic ideas were already present.
2. The fact thus conceded of the "pre-prophetic"
character of the narratives yields several weighty results.
(1) We deduce from it, first, as just said, that the internal
unity and teleological character so conspicuous in these
narratives formed an integral part of the tradition, and was
not put into it by later prophetic manipulation. It was
part of the tradition as early as the ninth century, when at
least one of these narratives took written shape. If here,
again, anyone is content to think of what he finds in the
J and E histories as answering to the idea of loose, popular
legend, he must be allowed to retain his opinion, but we
cannot share it. Legend does not usually assume this char
acter of depth, coherence, developing purpose ; does not em
body ideas, transactions, promises, such as we find in these
narratives, — the protevangelium, for instance, the call of
Abraham, the covenants, the revelations at the Exodus, —
containing in them the germs of a long future. If these
things are there in a "pre-prophetic " narrative, they clearly
formed part of the original tradition, and were not put there
by a later prophetic hand.
(2) We deduce, next, that this tradition, at the time of
its being written down by J and E, must already have
assumed a quite developed and settled form. When we look
at the range of this J and E history in the Pentateuchal
books — at its rich content, at its well-developed biographies,
with their wealth of characterisation, finished dialogue,
connection with specified localities and situations, at its
1 On this point of the faithful recording of the tradition, on which much
hinges, we have such testimonies as the following : —
Dillmann says that E "preserves unchanged in its narrations the
manner, tone, and colour of the living legendary lore of the people." —
Genesis, p. 9.
Gunkel says : "The legends of J and E are taken over by the collectors
essentially as they found them." — Genesis, Introd. p. lvi.
Driver says: "J and E give us pictures of the traditions as they were
current in the early centuries of the monarchy." — Genesis, p. Iviii. He
speaks of the indications "that these narrators were keeping themselves
within the limits of a tradition which they had received, rather than freely
creating ideal pictures of their own " (p. xiv). ,

70 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
articulated unity from beginning to close, it seems clear as
day that it is no floating, Protean legend we have to deal
with, but a legend — if the critic will have it so — already
firmly fixed in outline and in the bulk of its contents,
alrpady clothed with flesh and blood, already as definite in
substance, if not in form, as a written narrative itself could
be. The loose way in which many speak of J and E giving
literary shape to floating, popular legends, as one might
write down countryside fairy tales,, shows that they have
never clearly apprehended what kind of history this in the
JE narrative is, or what it is needful to presuppose as the
condition of such a history being there to write. If the
ideas in these writings were elaborated in any early
prophetic workshop, how profoundly spiritual, how deep-
seeing, the minds in that workshop must have been !
How explain the presence, or prevalence, of such ideas
in the age of Elijah and Elisha, on Wellhausen's theory
of the religious development and of the state of the
prophetic orders?1
(3) There is a yet weightier consideration — one based
directly on the critical hypothesis — which we do not see
how anyone can easily get over. It is the fact that, on this
theory, we have not one only, but two histories of early
times to reckon with. Here, as the critics tell us, are
two lengthy and practically independent2 histories, one
emanating from the South, the other from the North, at
a time when (on the hypothesis) the kingdoms were
already divided, and separate in interests. Both cover the
same ground, and give the history of the people for the
same period. But now comes the startling thing about them,
that, while two in authorship, place of writing, and perhaps
tendency, these histories are, in nearly every other respect,
almost identical. The substance of the narrative is the
same, or varies only in trifling details. They record the
same incidents, follow nearly the same order, tell their story
1 Elijah was, in Wellhausen's view, the first to grasp the idea " that
there exists over all but one Holy One and one Mighty One, who reveals
Himself not in nature, but in law and righteousness, in the world of
man." — Hist, of Israel, p. 462. But Elijah's idea was not generally shared.
1 Addis says that Hupfeld made it plain "that each of these documents
had once been an independent work.— Hex. p. xxix. Gunkel strongly
affirms the independence of the documents {Genesis, p. lvii). Other critics
suppose partial dependence of one on the other. See below, p. 204.

I. THE HISTORY 71
in almost the same language. They are parallel narratives
in the fullest sense. The proof of this lies in the fact that,
on the critical view, these narratives have subsequently been
combined, and in the union, not only is sometimes the section
of one, sometimes the section of another, taken into the
record, but in many chapters the two narratives are blended
line by line, clause by clause, with such minuteness, some
what after the fashion of a Harmony of the Gospels, or are
so completely fused together, that the keen-scented critics
often declare themselves baffled to separate them, and differ
widely in their attempts to do so.1 The reader has only
to examine the analysis offered of such chapters as Gen.
xxvii, xxviii., xxx., xxxvii., to be convinced of the truth of
what we state.
So striking a class of phenomena naturally suggests the
question whether we are really dealing with two documents
at all.2 Keeping, however, meanwhile to the critical
hypothesis as given, we ask — What follows from it ? Two
things very plainly. In the first place, such phenomena put
an effective check on any theorist who would contend that
the J and E writers did not, as we have supposed, faithfully
reproduce the tradition, but wrought it up artistically in a
new form of their own, as Shakespeare might work up the
old stories of Macbeth or King Lear, or Tennyson the
legends of King Arthur. If that were admissible for one
writer, it plainly would not be admissible for two, working
independently. The fact that two writers — one Northern,
the other Southern — give the same cycle of stories in much
the same way, is proof that both are reproducing, not in
venting. But, second, it proves also the truth of what has
been said above of the fixed character of the tradition.
Here, ex hypothcsi, we have two writers setting down the
traditions current in their respective localities and circles ;
and these, when compared, are found to be, in the words of
1 On the parallelism of the narratives, see below, Chap. VII. pp. 218 ff.
Wellhausen, as already noted, extends the parallelism to P ; see below, p. 107.
Testimonies as to the closeness of the resemblance, and intimate union, of
the JE narratives are found in every writer. Dillmann says : " It is often
very difficult or impossible to make a complete separation between them,
where their narratives have been worked into each other by later editors,
and material criteria are wanting." — Genesis, p. 14. Cf. Gunkel, Genesis,
pp. lx ff. ; and see below, pp. 219 ff.
a The question is discussed in Chap. VII. pp. 216 ff., and there answered
in the negative.

72 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Klostermann, "throughout parallel."1 The slight discre
pancies that are alleged are quite outweighed by the
substantial agreement. Criticism, therefore, if its division
of these documents could be trusted, would furnish us with
a powerful corroboration of the genuineness and fixed char
acter of the tradition at a period not later than the ninth
century b.c. It would give us two witnesses instead of one.2
IV. Stepping-Stones to Earlier Date of Tradition
The above results are obtained from the simple con
siderations that our assumed documents antedate the age
of written prophecy, and that they are two in number.
From the vantage-ground thus gained, we may now push
our inquiry into the value of the Hebrew tradition a good
way further back. Obviously there is need for doing this.
Grant that we have a rich, and in the main coherent, tradi
tion as a possession of the people of Israel in North and
South as early as the ninth or eighth century, it will be
felt that we are still a long way from the events them
selves to which the tradition relates,3 and the question may
properly be asked whether an earlier date can be assigned
to the tradition than that which we have yet reached?
Conjecture here is of little value ; but there are some very
definite stepping-stones, to which we may, we think, trust
ourselves with great confidence.
1. It is first to be noted that the facts already ascertained
about the tradition of themselves carry us a good way beyond
the dates assumed for the reduction of the tradition to
writing. The point here is, that, whatever the date of
authorship of the supposed documents, the tradition itself,
from its fixed and settled character in both branches of the
kingdom, must be much earlier. The tradition which
J and E found did not come into existence in that year,
or that century. It had a definite, stable form, which it
1 Der Pentateuch, p. 10 ; see below, pp. 218-19, 345.
2 Cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 168 ; Driver, Genesis, p. xliv ;
Westphal, Les Sources du Pent. i. Pref. p. xxviii.
8 Kuenen asks in regard to these narratives: "Do we arrive at the
certainty of which we are in search with regard to Israel's former history ? "
and he answers : " To begin with, we obtain nothing but the idea which was
entertained of that history in the eighth [or ninth] century B.C." — Rel.
of Israel, i. p. 103.

I. THE HISTORY 73
must have possessed for a considerable time before, and
which took a much longer time to grow into its settled shape.
It must have had substantially the shape in which we find
it before the division of the kingdom, — only thus can we
account for its being found in practically the same form in
both North and South,— and for the absence of all allusions
to the division.1 This means that it was the possession of
Israel in the days of Solomon and David : there is no great
stretch of imagination in saying, even in the days of
Samuel. If it be urged that this is incompatible with its
mode of transmission by vague popular repetition, it may
with great cogency be replied that the coherence, consist
ency, and persistence of the tradition may be itself a proof
that it was not left to depend entirely on this mode of trans
mission, but already existed, in some form, in written shape,
or was at least the subject of careful and continuous in
struction.2 2. With this has to be taken into account another fact
of great importance. We have hitherto, in deference to pre
vailing views, accepted the ninth and eighth centuries as
the periods of the composition of the J and E narratives.
These dates, however, it is now necessary to remind the
reader, are at most the termini ad quern for the writing of
these histories. They were not later than 850-750 B.C., but
it does not follow that they were not much earlier. " The
terminus a quo," says Dr. Driver, " is more difficult to fix
with confidence : in fact, conclusive criteria fail us." 3 The
statement that J and E originated at about the dates named
has settled down into a kind of commonplace in the critical
schools ; yet it is far from being a secure result of criticism :
we should be disposed to say it is one of the most insecure.
If the reader will consult the list of dates formerly given,
he will see that critics like Dillmann, Riehm, Kittel, carry
back the date of E as far as 900-850 B.C.; Schrader to
975-950 B.C. ; Noldeke puts J about 900 B.C. ; Schultz puts
J in the reign of Solomon, etc. Writers of older standing
went back still further. Bleek, e.g., put the Jehovist in the
1 Stade, indeed, thinks that the Jacob-Joseph legend supposes the
divided kingdom {Geschichte, i. p. 128). This is a good specimen of the
style of argument.
2 Cf. Gen. xviii. 19 ; Ex. xii. 26, 27 ; Deut. vi. 7, 20-25 ; xi. 19 ; Ps.
lxxviii. 3, 4.
» Introd. p. 123.

74 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
reign of David ; Colenso, in the age of David and Solomon.1
But many recent writers also uphold a very early date.
Konig, e.g., thinks that E can be placed with greatest cer
tainty in the time of the Judges ; J is put by him in the
reign of David.2 Kohler gives similar dates : E in the time
of the Judges (c. 1100 B.c.) and J in the reign of David
(c. 1000 B.C.).3 Klostermann, from an independent stand
point, attributes to the old Pentateuchal history a very
high antiquity, the upper limit of which cannot be
determined.4 ^
If, in surprise, the reader asks on what grounds
the dates have undergone so remarkable a lowering in
the Wellhausen school, the answer is not far to seek. It
is not that any new and revolutionary discoveries have
been made as regards the language, text, or contents of
the books. The really determining factor will be found
generally to lie in a new theory of religious development,5
combined with assumptions as to the reflections of later
events (e.g., the wars of Syria with Israel) in the patriarchal
stories.6 But here again, as we shall see more fully below,
the newest school of all — that of Gunkel — comes in with
a weighty caveat. Gunkel argues strongly for the "pre-
prophetic " character of the narratives ; finds the formation
of patriarchal legends concluded as far back as 1200 B.C. ;
is clear that their after working-up is not later than the
early kings; rejects the mirroring of the Syrian wars,
and (with one exception due to later addition) can discover
1 Pent. Pt. vi. p. 536. It is to be remembered that all these older
writers put the Elohist writer (including P) still earlier than J. Ewald,
e.g., places his " Book of Origins " under Solomon ; Colenso assigns his Elo-
histic narrative in Genesis to the age of Saul and Samuel {Pent. Pt. vi.
App. p. 116).
" Einleitung, p. 205.
8 Hauck's Realencyc. art. ' ' Abraham," i. p. 102.
4 Pent. pp. 77, 219-20. There have, of course, always been those also
who defended a direct Mosaic authorship.
• Dr. Driver says : "We can only argue upon grounds of probability
derived from our view of the progress of the art of writing, or of literary
composition, or of the rise and growth of the prophetic tone and feeling in
ancient Israel. . . . For estimating most of which, though plausible argu
ments, on one side or the other, may be advanced, a standard on which we
can confidently rely scarcely admits of being fixed." — Inlrod. pp. 123-24.
"E.g., "In the story of Jacob and Laban, again, the contemporary
background shines through the patriarchal history very distinctly." —
Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 323 ; cf. Addis, Hex. i. p. 62 ; Driver, Genesis,
p. lix. See below, pp. Ill, 209.

I. THE HISTORY 75
no indication of political conditions after 900 B.C.1 It
need not be said that if dates such as those preferred by
the above-mentioned writers be admitted, the whole state
of the question is revolutionised, and we are brought within
measurable distance of a period from which sound tradition
could easily be preserved. The argument from the firmness
and consistency of the tradition acquires in that case
enhanced importance.
3. The supposition is made above that the J and E
histories, if the dates assigned to them by the critics are
correct, were not based wholly on oral tradition, but may
rest on older written material as well. Is this entirely
conjecture ? Let us see.
(1) The history of the language affords the best grounds
for believing that the history of the people must have
existed in some earlier written form. We have argued
that the existence of the tradition in a fixed and settled
form in the ninth and eighth centuries implies its existence
at a long anterior period. But what shall we say of the
works J and E themselves, and of the language in which
they are written? That language belongs, as we have
seen, " to the golden age of Hebrew literature." 2 It was
a fully-formed literary language — a language with the finest
capabilities of historical narration already developed. How
did that language come into being ? Whence did it derive
its literary capabilities ? Whence the literary art and skill
to produce these books we are dealing with? These are
questions which seem often strangely ignored. The language
of Shakespeare was not Shakespeare's creation ; neither was
the language of Chaucer, Chaucer's creation. But here are
two historians — according to some, "schools" of historians
— expert to the highest degree in the use of the pen. The
men who wrote the 24th chapter of Genesis — that " charm
ing idyll, the captivating picture of the wooing and bringing
home of Rebekah"3 — the story of Joseph, the dramatic
scenes between Moses and Pharaoh, the narrative of the
crossing of the Red Sea, were authors of the first rank.
How were they created ? On what models did they work ?
Is it not necessary to assume earlier literature, and that,
1 Genesis, pp. lxi, Ixii. See below, pp. Ill, 209.
1 Driver, Wellhausen, see above, p. 66.
' Delitzsch, Genesis, ii. j>. 104.

76 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
too, of a highly developed kind, — not songs merely, or dry
court chronicles, but historical compositions, — to explain the
existing productions ?
(2) But here, again, it is important to note, we are not
left wholly to inference or conjecture. The productions of
J and E are not, on the current view of their dates, the
earliest specimens of Hebrew literature we possess.1 We
need not go further than the pages of Dr. Kautzsch, whose
devotion to criticism will not be doubted, in proof of this
statement. According to this authority, the language was
already highly developed, and the art of writing dis
seminated among the common people,2 in the time of the
Judges. The Song of Deborah in Judges v. — "a poem of
priceless worth," "genuine, splendid poetry" — is ascribed
by him to about 1250 B.C., and the fable of Jotham (Judg.
ix. 7 ff.), the artistic finish of which, he says, is so high, and
the delicate satire so great, " as again to suggest the conjec
ture that this form of composition must have been long
and diligently cultivated, is referred to the same period." 3
Between this and the reign of David fall other pieces,
as the Song of Miriam, the poetical fragments in Numbers,
the address to the sun and moon in Joshua. To David's
reign (1020-980 B.c.) belong the elegies of David on Saul
and Abner, and to the same age, or that of Solomon, a
number of other highly finished productions.* The speech
of Solomon at the dedication of the temple, 1 Kings viii.
12 ff. (how much?) is held to be "an authentic monument
1 It would scarcely be necessary to emphasise this, but for the suggestion
in a remark of Wellhausen's, that in the interval between Elijah and Elisha
and Amos, "a non-literary had developed into a literary age." — Hist, of
Israel, p. 465.
a Lit. of O.T., p. 10; cf. Judg. viii. 14 (R.V.). Many critics carry
literary composition much further back. Ewald, e.g., supposes Gen. xlix.
22-26 to go back to the times before Moses (written?). — Revelation: its
Nature and Record (E.T.), p. 323. Delitzsch thinks the Song and Blessing
of Moses may have been written by him. — Genesis, i. p. 45, etc.
3 Ibid. pp. 4, 5. Kautzsch thinks it probable, however, "that we must
come down tc the time of David for the writing out of the products of those
earlier days " (p. 10. Why ?). Stade also says the Song of Deborah bears
traces of having been composed under the immediate impression of the
victory it records. See the remarkable list of testimonies on this point in
Kbnig's art. "Judges," in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 813. Professor Robertson
thinks the Song "may have come down in writing from that period." —
Early Religion, p. 79.
4 He includes here the Blessing of Jacob, and the original form of the
Balaam-Discourses.

I. THE HISTORY 77
of the reign of Solomon."1 Then we come to the so-called
" Hero-Stories " of the Book of Judges, and to the " Jerusalem-
Stories," the " David-Stories," and the " Saul-Stories," which
make up a large part of the Books of Samuel. These are
placed between 933-911 B.C.— the "Saul-Stories" a few
years later.2 The " Jerusalem-Source " is assigned " to the
period immediately after Solomon,"8 and is described as
"one of the most complete, truthful, and finished pro
ducts of historical writing which have come down to us
from the Hebrews, and indeed from the whole ancient
world."* Here then we have the language nearly in its prime
carried back to the thirteenth century b.c, with a long
cultivation necessarily preceding, — are brought, in short,
almost to the verge of the Exodus. Are we to suppose
that all this while nothing was done to produce some
records of the people's history, of the events of the Exodus,
which admittedly so deeply moved them,6 and, beyond that,
of the traditions of the fathers ? To us this appears so
incredible, that, even if no literature existed which seemed
to require such records for its explanation, we should be
forced to suppose that they once existed, but had unfortu
nately become lost. Much more are we driven to assume
them, if regard is had to the mass of the tradition, and
to the clearness, coherence, and religious importance of its
contents, so different from what forms the staple of popular
oral legend. It is not a conclusive answer to this to say
that we have no direct evidence of the existence of such
records. If the essential parts of such records are in
corporated in the works we have, it can readily be understood
why they should drop out of memory and use ; 6 or it may
turn out in the end that the so - called J and E are
themselves such records, — that is, we may be compelled by
the internal character of the history to antedate its written
1 Lit. of 0. T., p. 12 ; cf. p. 177. See below, p. 102.
3 Ibid. pp. 178-79. "Ibid. p. 27.
4 Ibid. p. 25. Dr. Driver says of this narrative (2 Sam. ix.-xx.) : "The
abundance and particularity of detail show that the narrative must date
from a period very little later than that of the events related. The style
is singularly bright, flowing, and picturesque." — Introd. p. 183.
« See below, pp. 100 ff.
8 Thus the voluminous records which underlie the historical books
(Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, etc.) have perished : so also the early attempt*
at the composition of written Gospels (Luke i. 1).

78 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
form, and to revise our conceptions of the literary capabilities
of an earlier age.1
(3) A third consideration under this head remains. The
use of earlier records in the composition of J and E is not
a hypothesis opposed to critical science : it is one to which
adherents of the critical school in perhaps increasing number
are coming back. Not to speak of others more conservative,
such writers as Delitzsch always insisted on the use of
ancient material, part of it Mosaic, in the Pentateuch;
but, as representing a newer position, we may instance
Kittel. " Certain it is," this writer says, " that such sources,
probably even in documentary form, to some extent, lay
before E as well as J. ... In many cases it seems
demonstrable that E worked in accordance with sources
that were ancient, and in part very ancient. And further,
where this cannot now be discerned, we may accept his
descriptions as resting on older material, oral or written,
except where there are conclusive reasons of a special
kind to the contrary." 2
V. Corroborative Evidence of Early Date of Sources
There are, we would say in concluding, three things
which strongly corroborate the positions we have laid
down. 1. The first is the enormous increase of light which recent
discovery has cast on the very early, and indeed common, use
of writing, and high development of literature in the ancient
East. We return to this subject in a later chapter,3 and only
here anticipate the general result. The discoveries amount
to a revolution in old beliefs, and, as scholars are beginning
to recognise, alter the perspective of everything that
relates to arts, laws, and letters in the early parts of the
Old Testament. Culture and writing are carried back in
Babylonia to an almost fabulous antiquity — millenniums
1 This, it will be seen after, is what we take to be the true solution.
The classic period of the JE writings does not then come after, but, as seems
most reasonable, lies behind the flourishing age of Kautzsch's " Jerusalem-
Source." Can it be thought likely that suoh skill should be bestowed on
the reign of David, while the whole wonderful past of the nation stood
neglected ?
3 Hist, of Hubs. i. pp. 90, 95.
* Chap. XL, where details are given.

I. THE HISTORY ;9
before the days of Abraham, and the age of Abraham itself
is' shown by the Code of Hammurabi and the contract
tablets of the same age to have been one of highly-developed
civilisation and general enlightenment. In Egypt we find
that the hieroglyphic system was already complete by the
time of Menes, founder of the first dynasty (c. 4000 b.c) ;
in Canaan, as the Tel el-Amarna tablets discover to us]
epistolary correspondence was freely carried on about
1400 B.C., in the Babylonian language and cuneiform
character;1 Crete is proved to have been the abode of an
advanced culture long before the age of Moses: if Dr.
Glaser's speculations are correct,2 the inscriptions of the
kingdom of Maon in South Arabia are possibly as old as the
Exodus. It cannot be denied that this wholly unexpected
light on the all but universal diffusion of letters 'in the
ancient world8 puts the problems of the patriarchal and
Mosaic times in an entirely new setting.4 It is no longer
sufficient to reply that a nomad people like the Hebrews
was an exception to the general rule. The nomad theory
rests on the critic's own assumptions, and is of no force
against the indications of the history itself.6 Moses was not
a nomad, but is figured as " learned in all the wisdom of
the Egyptians." 6 Joseph and his family were not nomads,
and the position of the Hebrews in Egypt under Joseph's
regime must have been one of great honour and influence.7
2. The progress of discovery, again, has brought to hght
1 Dr. Sayce goes so far as to say of Canaan.: " Schools and libraries, in
fact, must have existed everywhere, and the are of reading and writing must
have been as widely spread as it was in Europe before the days of the
penny post." — Higher Crit. p. 57 ; cf. his Early Israel, Introduction.
a Cf. Sayce, Higher Crit. pp. 39 ff.
'Sayce says: "From one end of the civilised ancient world to the
other men and women were reading and writing and corresponding with
one another ; schools abounded and great libraries were formed, in an age
which the critic only a few years ago declared was almost wholly
illiterate." — Monument Facts, p. 42.
4 "According to all analogy," says Professor Kittel, "we may henceforth
expect that in the case of Biblical science also, the stakes may be pushed
further forward and the cords much further lengthened than anxious minds
were prepared for, and that, too, without leaving the ground of the
historically possible and admissible. If in the case of Hellas and the
Islands the second millennium before Christ is no longer absolutely a
terra incognita, in all probability the presumably older culture - field of
Syria and Palestine will be still less so." — Babyl. Exears. pp. 17, 18.
6 See below, pp. 104, 154. • Acts vii. '22.
7 Gen. 1. 7-11. Cf. Hommel, Ancient Heb. Trad p. 229.

80 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
so much minutely confirmatory of the historical, geographical,
and ethnographical data of the early parts of the Old Testa
ment, that the assumption of early records seems indispens
able to explain how such knowledge — often antiquarian and
obsolete — has been preserved. Such, e.g., is the light thrown
on the historical conditions in the account of the expedition
of Chedorlaomer in Gen. xiv. ; or on the remarkable state
ments in Gen. x. as to the origin and relations of the most
ancient peoples ; or on the vivid picturing of Egyptian life
and customs in the history of Joseph, and in the narratives
of Moses and the Exodus.1
3. Lastly, there is the evidence of the Biblical narratives
themselves as to the early use of writing in Israel. Thus
far we have refrained from drawing on the Biblical history,
but, in an inquiry of this kind, its evidence cannot in
fairness be disregarded. It is not to be thought of, that,
while every scrap of testimony from profane sources is
welcomed, and made the most of, the Scriptures alone are to
be treated like criminal suspects, whose every word is to be
doubted, unless hostile cross-examination fails to shake it,
or independent confirmation of it can be produced.2 Like
other witnesses, the Biblical writers are entitled to be heard
with & prima facie presumption of their honesty. It is the
case, then, that writing and written records are frequently
referred to in the Pentateuchal narratives. Not, indeed, in
the patriarchal narratives — an internal mark of, their
truthfulness 8 — but in the age of Moses and Joshua. Re
peatedly things are said to be written, or are commanded
to be written. Writing is implied in the name of the
" officers " (Shoterim = scribes) 4 set over the Israelites in
their bondage. No inconsiderable amount of written matter
is directly ascribed to Moses, creating the presumption that
there was more, even when the fact is not directly stated.
Moses wrote " all the words of Jehovah " in the " Book
of the Covenant."6 He was commanded to write in a
1 See below, Chap. XI. pp. 413 ff.
a Cf. Ladd, Doct. of Sac. Scripture, i. p. 345. Ladd quotes Lessing on
the N.T. : " If now Livy and Dionysius and Polybius and Tacitus are
treated so frankly and nobly that we do not put them to the rack for every
syllable, why not also Matthew and Mark and Luke and John ? "
* Cf. Delitzsch, Genesis, i. p. 3. But see below, p. 375. The argument
from silence is precarious, and Babylonian analogy would suggest that
writing would be used in such a contract as that in Gen. xxiii.
4 Ex. v. 6, 14, etc » Ex. xxiv. 4, 7.

I. THE HISTORY 81
(the) book the decree against Amalek.1 He wrote "the
goings-out" of Israel from Egypt, "according to their
journeyings." 2 There was a written register of the seventy
elders.8 He wrote " the words of this law " at Moab, " in a
book until they were finished," 4 and also wrote his " Song,"
and "taught it to the children of Israel."6 "All the
words of this law" were to be written on stones at
Mount Ebal,6 and the Book of Joshua records that this was
done.7 Joshua assumes, in conformity with Deut. xxxi. 24-
26, the existence of a " book of the law," and it is said of
Joshua's own address to the people that " he wrote these
words in the book of the law of God." All this, as we now
know, is in keeping with the state of culture at the time,8
and lends support to the view that much first-hand material
from the Mosaic age is substantially preserved in the books
which refer to this period.
The conclusion we draw from the whole discussion is,
that the view is untenable which regards the Biblical
history of Israel's early condition and religious development
as a projection back on patriarchal times of the ideas
of the prophetic age. Even accepting the critical pre
mises — in part by help of them — we are warranted in the
belief to which we were led by the consideration of the
organic and purposeful character of the Old Testament
narrative itself, that it is a faithful representation of the
actual course of the early history of the people. This con
clusion will obtain confirmation from the detailed examina
tion which follows.
1 Ex. xvii. 14. * Num. xxxiii. 2.
• Num. xi. 26. 4 Deut. xxxi. 9, 24, 26.
¦ Deut. xxxi. 19, 22. * Deut. xxvii. 8.
' Josh. viii. 30-35. See below, p. 263.
8 Referring to the Tel el-Amarna discoveries, Professor Robertson says :
"We need no longer, therefore, wonder that among the towns taken by
Joshua was one called Kirjath-Sepher, Book-town (Josh. xv. 15 ; Judg. i.
11), or Kirjath-Sannah [City of Instruction] (Josh. xv. 49) ; or that a lad
caught at the roadside was able to write down the names of the chief men of
Succoth in the time of the Judges (Judg. viii. 14, R.V.)."— Early Religion,
p. 78. See further on Hebrew writing in Chap. X. below, pp. 874-5.

4

CHAPTER IV
TCbe ©lo Testament as affectefc b£ Grftfctsm-
5. Ube ibistors : Countety&beortes XEesteo

"The characteristic of the Israelitish mind was an outlook into the
future. . . . Was the case different with Abraham 1 If he was anything
like that oharacter which these early histories describe him to have been,
nothing would seem more natural than that he should be made to know
what the goal was to be to which his "history looked. One can scarcely
explain how Israel came to direct its attention to Canaan when it escaped
from Egypt, unless it had some tradition of its destiny alive is it." —
A. B. Davidson.
"Abraham in that early dawn of history, with polytheism and idolatry
all around him, saw his own creed triumphant in the world ; he predicted
its triumph, and the prediction has as a matter of fact come true. It is
triumphant. The creed of Abraham has become the creed of the civilised
world. The patriarch's creed has been victorious over the idolatry of the
human race, and grown from a deposit in the breast of one man into a
universal religion." — Mozlet.
"There are certain points which all the sources take for granted as
firmly established by tradition : namely, that Moses, of the tribe of Levi,
was the first to proclaim Jahweh as the God of the whole people of Israel,
and as their Deliverer from the bondage of Egypt ; that at Sinai he brought
about the conclusion of a ' covenant ' between Jahweh and Israel ; that he
at least laid the foundation of the judicial and ceremonial ordinances
in Israel, and that he left behind him more or less copious notes on all
this." — Kautzsch.

CHAPTER IV
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
—I. THE HISTORY: COUNTER-THEORIES TESTED
It is necessary now to widen our argument, and look more
closely at the construction of the history which the radical
criticism opposes to the Biblical — to test its grounds, and
weigh the force of the considerations which are thought to
be fatal to the latter. This will afford us opportunity of
reinforcing our previous conclusions, and will prepare the
way for the discussion, in succeeding chapters, of the bear
ing of critical principles on religion and institutions.
I. Rival Constkuctions as Dependent on theie
Presuppositions '
It was pointed out in the first chapter1 that nearly
everything in the critical discussion of the history and
religion of the Old Testament depends on the presup
positions with which we start. If the Old Testament is
read in the light of its own presuppositions, — which, surely,
in the first instance, is not an unfair thing to ask, — its
contents present a very different aspect from what they do
if read in the hght of principles which contradict these
presuppositions. Let one assume, and hold fast by the
idea, that there has really been a great scheme of historical
revelation extending through successive dispensations, and
culminating in the Incarnation in Jesus Christ, and many
things will appear natural and fitting as parts of such
a scheme, which otherwise would be rejected as incredible,
or be taken account of only to be explained away.
It need not surprise us, therefore, that, rejecting the
Biblical presuppositions, the more radical criticism rejects
1 See above, p. 14.
85

86 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
of necessity the history which depends on these, and, for
the picture of the origins of Israel, and of Mosaic times,
given in the Old Testament, substitutes another and very
different one, evolved from its own assumptions. For it,
the unhistorical character of the Biblical narratives is
decided before the inquiry begins. Israel, on its view,
emerges from the dim past as a loose aggregation of tribes ;
polytheists, or at least monolaters ; not a people chosen and
called of God, with the memory of a past, and the con
sciousness of a future, but a horde of semi-barbarians,
sharing the ordinary Semitic ideas, customs, and super
stitions, and indebted for what rudiments of culture they
ultimately came to possess to the more advanced
Canaanites. There was no revelation; everything
happened by natural development. It is obvious that
such a people could not have had the history which
the Bible ascribes to it. With such a theory in the back
ground of his mind, and consciously or unconsciously used
as the standard of his judgments, the critic has no alterna
tive but to regard the stories he is dealing with as a
bundle of legends. The sole question he has to ask
himself is, How did such legends come to be formed?
What tribal reminiscences may be supposed to shimmer
through them? The paradoxical thing is, when his con
clusions are taken over by those who do not share his
presuppositions, and receive endorsement as the results
of the latest critical scholarship!
When, however, as just said, the standpoint is reversed,
and we look at the matter from the Bible's own point of
view, things appear very differently. Assume, for instance,
what is the Bible's own assertion, that God did really
call this man Abraham, and make His covenant with him,
— assume that this was a grave, serious transaction, of the
utmost moment to Abraham himself, to his posterity, and
to mankind, and was felt to be so, — assume that it was
required of him that he should diligently train his children
and his household after him in the knowledge of it,1 — then,
can it be doubted that the utmost pains would be taken
to preserve and transmit faithful accounts of these doings,
till such time as a permanent record could be made of
them; and does not the patriarchal history, with its rich
1 Cf. Gen. xviii. 18, 19.

I. THE HISTORY 87
*
biographies, and impregnation with covenant-ideas, present
precisely the character we might expect in such a record ?
Assume, again, that the Exodus really took place in some
such way as the Bible relates, — that Jehovah, the covenant-
keeping God of the fathers, really revealed Himself to
Moses, and really brought the people out of Egypt with
wonderful manifestations of His power and grace, — we have
only to ask the question, Could the people ever forget it ?
to see how impossible is the supposition. We shall then
cease to wonder at the graphic narratives which have come
down to us from that soul-stirring time, and will be ready
to see in them a faithful reflection of the consciousness
of the period.
All this, naturally, is folly to the newer critical school ;
for does it not imply those higher religious ideas, and that
"familiar intercourse of the Deity with the patriarchs,"1
which Kuenen tells us are conclusive marks of the un
historical character of the narratives ? We are not without
hope that a different impression may be produced by a
candid examination of the grounds of his objections.
The foregoing, it should be noticed, yields us the right
point of view for answering the question sometimes asked
— In what sense do we speak of " history " in these early
parts of the Bible ? So far we must agree with the critics
when they remind us that the history in the Bible is
religious history — that is, not bare narratives of outward
occurrences, as an ancient chronicler, or modern newspaper
reporter, might set them down, but history written from a
religious standpoint, for purposes of edification, and reflect
ing in its story the impression on the mind of the beholder
and on the writer, as well as the objective fact. Aa
respects the early periods, it follows from what has been
said, and is evident of itself, that what we have to do with
is, for the most part, not contemporary narration, but
history in the form of carefully preserved tradition, — not,
indeed, as the critics will have it, mere floating folk-lore,
but sacred tradition of real events and transactions in the
lives of real men, and of God's revelations and dealings
with them — tradition on which we can rely as faithfully
conveying to us the contents of God's message to them and
to ourselves — yet still tradition, having the rounded,
1 Rel. of Israel, i. p. 108. See above, p. 60.

88 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
dramatic character which narratives naturally assume as
the result of repeated telling,1 and recorded in the form in
which they finally reached the literary narrator. Such
transmission may not exclude a measure of " idealisation,"
and reflection of later ideas and conditions; but this, we
are persuaded, to a' far smaller extent than many — even
believing writers — suppose. The view of the history thus
indicated we now proceed to vindicate.
II. Theory that Patriarchs were not Individuals,
but "Personifications"
An interesting light is thrown on the method of un
proved assumption and arbitrary hypothesis by which, as
we think, much of the work of this newer criticism is done,
in what Kuenen adduces as his " principal cause of hesita
tion " in accepting the patriarchal narratives, viz., that the
actors in them " have one characteristic in common — they
are all progenitors of tribes." He infers from this " that the
narratives in Genesis present us, not with real historical
personages, but with personifications." 2 Since the days of
Ewald the theory of personification has been a favourite one
with critical writers, though generally there has gone with
it, as in the case of Ewald himself, the recognition of a basis
of real personal history in the narratives. Wellhausen, Stade,
and the more thorough-going members of their school, how
ever, make no such reservations. With them all historical
reality is given up, — logically enough, for, if individual
progenitors of tribes are admitted at all, a main foundation
of the theory is destroyed, — and only collective names, and
reflections of tribal relations and characteristics remain.3
Wellhausen actually thinks that Abraham was a compara-
1 Dr. John Smith, in his Integrity of Scripture, p. 38, speaks of the
Pentateuch, which he upholds as "a credible and substantially con
temporary record of a true revelation of God to Moses, and through Moses
to Israel," as " incorporating the sacred family traditions of earlier
revelations." 2 Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 109-112.
8 Cf. Kuenen, ut supra ; Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 318 ff. ; Stade,
Geschichte, pp. 28 ff. ; Gunkel, Genesis, Introd. ; Guthe, art. "Israel,"
Ency. Bib. (also arts, on Patriarchs) ; Cornill, Hist, of Israel ; H. P. Smith,
O.T. Hist. pp. 38 ff., etc. For criticism of the theory, cf. Konig's Neueste
Prinnipien, pp. 35 ff. ; Kohler, art. " Abraham " in Hauck's Realeneye. ;
Robertson's Early Rel. pp. 121 ff., etc.

I. THE HISTORY 89
tively late " free creation of unconscious art " ; 1 others can
persuade themselves that even Amos and Hosea did not
regard the patriarchs as individual persons.2 It is well that
Kuenen should tell us that this is his strongest proof, for,
in testing his chain in its firmest link, we are better enabled
to judge of its strength as a whole.
The theory, then, is, that the patriarchs were not actual
individuals, but "personifications " of tribes. To the critic's
mind nothing could be simpler or more demonstrable. " To
the Oriental," says Professor H. P. Smith, "it is natural
to speak of the clan as an individual. . . . The common
method of our Hebrew writers was to personify clans,
tribes, nations, or geographical divisions, and treat them
as individuals."3 No shade of doubt is held to rest on
this conclusion. " What interests us here is the fact that
the patriarchs cannot be taken as individuals. If individuals
Reuben, Gad, and Judah never existed, it is plain that
individuals Jacob, Esau, and Abraham cannot have any
more substantial reality. We have to do here with figures
of the poetic or legend-building imagination."4 Let us
look at the reasons by which these confident assertions are
supported. 1. The theory has its starting-point in the statement
that the names of the patriarchs in the history are not in
dividual, but tribal. But this, to begin with, is only partially
true. Of the majority of the progenitors of tribes {e.g., Dan,
Gad, Naphtali), little is recorded save the names ; of a few
(Judah, Simeon, Reuben), only special incidents; of the
three great patriarchs — Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — on the
other hand, and of Joseph, we have full and detailed bio
graphies. But, as has often been pointed out, neither
Abraham nor Isaac6 gave their names to tribes; Joseph,
also, did not do so directly, but only through his sons,
Ephraim and Manasseh. Lot is not the name of any tribe,
though this "weak-kneed saint," as Wellhausen calls him,
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 320.
3 H. P. Smith says : " Amos and Hosea at anyrate had little idea of the
patriarchs as individual men." — O.T. Hist. p. 38. So Guthe, etc.
» Ibid. pp. 38, 39. 4 Ibid. p. 42.
• In Amos vii. 16 the designation " house of Isaac " is used, but for the
whole nation, and plainly with reference to the Biblical statements as to
the relation of Isaac to Jacob. No light is thrown from the history of the
tribes on the origin of the name.

90 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
is the father of the Moabites and Ammonites. Neither
does Esau give his personal name to his descendants, the
Edomites. Even of Jacob, whose names (Jacob, Israel)
became, quite naturally and reasonably on the Biblical view,
those of the nation, it is to be noted that he is regarded, not
as the founder of a special tribe, but as the progenitor of the
individual tribes from whose union the nation was formed.
His name and character, therefore, can hardly have been
a mere abstraction from the nation collectively. There
seems, indeed, to be now evidence that both his name, and
those of Abraham and Joseph (with Ishmael, and others)
were proper names in use in Babylonia and Palestine from
early times.1
Abraham, as might be expected, is a special difficulty to
the theory. He is, as Wellhausen owns, " a little difficult
to interpret." 2 We have just seen that his name is not a
designation of either tribe or nation : neither is Isaac's.
The critic is therefore driven, as above hinted, to suggest
that he is " a free creation of unconscious art " ; s later than
Isaac.4 But then how explain these long and detailed
biographies, which bear so inimitable a stamp of reality,
yet have so little to suggest the reflection of the features
of a later age ? For here again the theory is in difficulty.
" It is remarkable," confesses Wellhausen, " that the heroes
of Israelitish legend show so little taste for war, and in this
point they seem to be scarcely a true reflection of the
character of the Israelites, as known from their history. . . .
The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are all peace-
loving shepherds, inclined to live quietly beside their tents,
anxious to steer clear of strife and clamour. . . . Brave
and manly they are not,6 but they are good fathers of
families,"6 etc. There are evidently knotty problems still
1 In a list of Thothmes in. (c. 1480 b.o.) there occur the names Jacob-el
and Joseph-el (the latter doubted by some), as those of places in Central
Palestine. Much earlier, in Babylonian contract tablets (c. 2200 B.C.), are
found the names Jacob, Jacob-el, and the name Abe-ramu, similar to
Abraham. See below, Chap. XI. pp. 409-10.
2 Hist, of Israel, p. 320. The idea that Abraham was the name of a
"god " has been very generally abandoned, but is now revived by Winckler ;
see above, p. 59.
*Ibid. 4 Professor Robertson pertinently remarks : "One would like to know how
much of the story of Isaac, as a popular legend, would be comprehensible
without reference to that of Abraham." — Rel. of Israel, p. 125.
» See below, p. 109. 6 Hist, of Israel, pp. 320-21,

I. THE HISTORY 91
unsolved on the theory that the history is simply a form of
" ethnographic genealogy."
2. A special proof of the personifying tendencies of the
Hebrew writers is sought in the forms of some of the
Scripture genealogies. These, it is pointed out, are frequently
ethnographical, not individual. A famihar example is the
" table of nations " in Gen. x. When, e.g., one reads there :
" The sons of Ham ; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and
Canaan. . . . And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and
Lehabim, and Naphtuhim. . . . And Canaan begat Sidon his
first-born, and Heth, and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, and
the Girgashite," 1 etc., everyone readily perceives, that not
individual persons, but nations or tribes, are meant. The
genealogies bear their ethnographic character upon their
face. But all genealogies are not of this nature ; and the
existence of such tables no more proves that Abraham and
Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his
brethren, Moses and Aaron, were not real persons, than it
proves, say, that Elkanah was not the father of Samuel, or
Eli of Hophni and Phinehas, or Jesse of David, but that in
all these cases we are dealing only with tribal abstractions.
We do not suppose, e.g., that when we read, " Salmon begat
Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed, and Obed begat Jesse, and Jesse
begat David,"2 we have before us a scrap of " ethnographic
genealogy," because elsewhere it is said that Canaan begat
the Jebusite and the Amorite. When we find richly-
developed biographies like those of Abraham and Jacob
attached to such names as " Mizraim," or " Ludim," or " the
Girgashite," it will be time to consider the analogy.8
3. The crowning support for the personification theory
is sought by Kuenen, Stade, Guthe, and others, in an
assumed law of the growth of societies. " New nations," Stade
says, " never originate through rapid increase of a tribe ; new
tribes never through derivation from a family propagating
itself abundantly through several generations." 4 To which
Konig aptly replies : " Often as I have read these sweeping
statements, I have always missed one trifle : I never found
a proof of this thesis." 6 Such a proof, in fact, is not to be
1 Gen. x. 6, 13, 15, 16. 3 Ruth iv. 21, 22.
8 See further illustration in Note A — Konig on the Personification Theory.
4 Geschichte, i. p. 28. Cf. Kuenen's Rel. of Israel, i. p. 40.
* Neueste Prinzipien, p. §6,

92 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
found; for none can be offered which does not, as in the
present case, assume the thing to be proved. As a general
dictum on the origin of society, its truth would be disputed
by many far better entitled to be listened to on the subject
than Stade. H. S. Maine, for instance, in his book on
Ancient Law : its Connection with the Early History of Society,
maintains the directly opposite thesis. To him the
"patriarchal theory" of the origin of society is the one
which best accords with all the facts. Jurisprudence, he
affirms, is full of the clearest indications that society in
primitive times was not a collection of individuals, but
an aggregation of families. " The unit of an ancient Society
was the Family. . . . The elementary group is the Family,
connected by common subjection to the highest male
ascendant. The Aggregation of Families forms the Gens or
House. The Aggregation of Houses makes the Tribe. The
Aggregation of Tribes constitutes the Commonwealth."1
Allowing, however, what is probably the truth, that society
does not follow everywhere the same law of growth, we are
still in no way shut up to the conclusion that it was not
thus that the Hebrew nation, under its peculiar conditions
of call and destiny, did develop. The development from
the one chosen individual into the many,2 in fulfilment of
promise, is the most natural thing imaginable, provided the
nation's own account of its antecedents and mission to the
world is accepted. The history here is in complete harmony
with itself. From the earliest period to which we can trace
back the Hebrew tribes, they are " the sons of Israel," and
of what that title meant they believed themselves to have
the clearest historical recollection. Why should that
recollection not be trusted, and designations like " house of
Jacob," " house of Isaac," " seed of Abraham," not be allowed
to mean what they obviously suggest, and were always
believed to mean — that the people were historically de
scended from these patriarchs, instead of being twisted into
proofs that these progenitors of the race never existed ?
The result to which we are thus far led is that the newer
criticism is unsuccessful in its attempt to make out the
patriarchs to be "not persons, but personifications." The
1 Ancient Law, pp. 126, 128.
2 Isa. li. 1, 2 : "When he was but one, I called him, and I blessed him,
and made him many. "

I. THE HISTORY 93
patriarchs, in the Biblical view, are both persons and pro
genitors of tribes, and there is no necessary contradiction
between the two things. It is to be anticipated that
ancestral traits will reappear in the descendants, and it is
not inadmissible to suppose that characteristics of the
descendants; to some degree, will' be found, designedly or
unconsciously, reflected in the portraiture of the progenitor
— as, for instance, in the cases of Ishmael and Esau.1 In
this sense there may be an element of " idealisation " in the
narratives, as there is, in fact, in every good painting, or
every good biography, of a person who has become historical.
This does not detract from the fidelity of the history, but
enhances it by interpreting its inner significance, and
investing it with the charm of literary art.
III. Witness of Israel's National Consciousness:
The Patriarchs
There is another branch of the critical method on which
it is proper that something should now be said. This relates
to the point just touched on — the testimony of the national
consciousness of Israel to its own past.
It was seen above that exception is taken to the high
religious ideas ascribed to the patriarchs, and to the stories
of the divine communications made to them. The question
of the early religion of Israel will be investigated in next
chapter. „ Meanwhile it may be permitted to remark on
Kuenen's dictum that "at first the religion of Israel was
polytheism," that that can hardly be a sure result of criticism
which many of the most distinguished critics of both past
and present times energetically repudiate. Ewald was free
enough in his treatment of the history, but he had no doubt
of the existence of the patriarchs, or that they " thought and
spoke monotheistically." 2 Dillmann, and Delitzsch, and
Riehm were critics, but none of them would assent to the
propositions of the Kuenen school about the religion of
early Israel. As little would Konig, or Kittel, or Baethgen,
or Klostermann, or Oettli, or the late Dr. A. B. Davidson,
or many others that might be named. Dillmann may be
quoted in this connection as Jin example. " If anyone,"
he says, " desires to maintain that this representation rests
1 Cf. Gen. xvi. 11, 12 ; xxvii. 40. 2 Hist, of Israel, i. p. 320.

94 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
only on an idealising conception of later writers, and is not
to be accepted as historical, it must be contended in opposi
tion that not merely Genesis, but the whole Old Testament,
speaks of a covenant, of a peculiar relation in which God
stood with the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; that
Moses attached himself with his work to the God of the
fathers; that without this attachment his work would be
incomprehensible ; that, therefore, even if Genesis had said
nothing on the subject, we should be compelled to postulate '
a certain acquaintance of these fathers with the living God,
a higher faith in God." 1
This deep consciousness which the Israelites possessed
throughout their history of their origin from Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob, and of the peculiar .favour of God to these
fathers of their race in making His covenant with them,
might be deemed an irrefragable argument for the truth of
the Biblical representations. So in reality it is ; but it is
essential to the modern critical view that the argument
should be deprived of its force, and the method by which this
is sought to be accomplished is an excellent example of the
arbitrariness we complain of in the critical procedure. The
aim is to show that the references to the patriarchs and
their doings — even to Moses — are so late as to deprive them
of all value, and the means employed for this end is the
summary excision from the text of all passages that speak
to the contrary as later additions. It is a method beautiful
in its simplicity, easily worked, and, when applied with
sufficient courage, as it is in both history and prophets,
never fails in silencing all opposing witness.2
1. We begin by giving two examples of the application
of this method to the prophets. " A striking fact is," says
Professor H. P. Smith, " that none of the prophets allude to
Abraham till we come to Ezekiel. The weight of this in an
inquiry into the historicity of the patriarchs can hardly be
1 Alttest. Theol. p. 82 ; of. pp. 414-15. Cf. Klostermann's Geschichte des
Volkes Israel, pp. 28 ff. Klostermann rejects as an " absolutely irrational
opinion " the view that the patriarchs are mythical forms, and contends that
only grounds of real tradition could have led the people to see, not in Moses,
who actually formed them into a nation, but in fathers, sharply distinguished
from Moses, and living in quite other times and relations, the founders of
their monotheistic religion.
3 It need scarcely be said that our remarks are not intended to apply
to soberly-directed attempts to correct errors or corruptions in the Hebrew
text, which reliable evidenoe shows to be really such. See Note H to Chap. X.

I. THE HISTORY 95
over-estimated." 1 Wellhausen, who, as we saw, is disposed
to regard Abraham as " a free creation of unconscious art,"
similarly writes: "The later development of the legend
shows a manifest tendency to make Abraham the patriarch
par excellence, and cast the others into the shade. In the
earlier literature, on the other hand, Isaac is mentioned
even by Amos. Abraham first appears in Isa. xl.-lxvi." 2 The
two statements, it may be observed, are not quite in
harmony, for Ezekiel, in which the one critic allows a
reference to Abraham, is at least earlier than the date
assumed by Wellhausen for Isa. xl.-lxvi, where, on his
showing, Abraham first appears. The passage in Ezekiel
(chap, xxxiii. 24) reads : " Abraham was one, and he inherited
the land." Even on the meagre footing of these passages,
it might be urged, we would not be without important
witnesses to the singular place occupied by Abraham in the
Israelitish tradition.
But are the facts as stated? If we take the Hebrew
text as it stands, they certainly are not. We go back to'
Jeremiah, and there read, chap, xxxiii. 26 : " I will take of his
seed to be rulers over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob." We go back a stage further, to the earlier Isaiah,
and there read, chap. xxix. 22: "Jehovah who redeemed
Abraham." We turn to Isaiah's contemporary, Micah, and
read, chap. vii. 20 : " Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob,
and the mercy to Abraham, which Thou hast sworn to our
fathers from the days of old." Here, then, are passages
which directly contradict the categorical assertions of the
critics : how are they dealt with ? In the simplest possible
fashion, by denying that they should be there. Thus, to his
statement that no prophet prior to Ezekiel alludes to
Abraham, Professor H. P. Smith calmly appends the foot
note : " The present text shows two passages, Micah vii. 20
and Jer. xxxiii. 26, but both are confessedly (?) late additions
to the prophetic text." 3 Wellhausen is equally summary :
1 O.T. Hist. p. 49 ; cf. p. 38. 2 Hist, of Israel, p. 310.
* As above. The whole passage Jer. xxxiii. 14-26 is omitted in the
LXX, which otherwise takes extensive liberties with the text. But no good
ground exists for its rejection from the Hebrew text. Graf defends it, and
Ewald says: "Nothing is so perverse and groundless as to find in this
passage, or generally, in chaps, xxx.-xxxiii., additions by a later prophet." —
Die Propheten, ii. p. 268. The remaining passages are in the LXX as well
as in the Hebrew.

g6 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
"Micah vii 20," he says, "belongs to the exile, and the
words 'who redeemed Abraham' in Isa. xxix. 22 are not
genuine: they have no possible position in the sentence."
To which it may be as summarily replied, that there is no
convincing reason for changing any of the passages, — if
reason at all, except in the critic's own caprice. Even
Kuenen, in his Religion of Israel, accepts as genuine the
passages to which Wellhausen takes exception.1 Gunkel,
one of the newest and most radical of critics, enters a much-
needed protest against the whole system of procedure. " The
author," he says, " at this point cannot conceal his conviction
that the reigning school of literary criticism is all too zealous
to explain as not genuine the passages which do not exactly
fit in with its construction of the history, or which are hard
to be understood by the modern investigator, and that a
powerful reaction must follow on the period of this criticism."2
2. It is now to be remarked, however, that even if the
critics were right in their assertion that there are no express
allusions to Abraham in the prophets prior to the exile, no
such dire results would follow for the historicity of the
patriarchs as the authorities we have quoted imagine.
Direct allusions in the prophets are, after all, only a fraction
of the evidence, and hardly affect the force of the argument
from the national recollection of Israel. In the first place,
it is to be observed that where allusions to Abraham do
occur, it is always as to a person well known, and enshrined
in the highest honour in the memory of the people. It is
no stranger that is being introduced to them. Israel is
" the seed of Abraham My friend." 3 They are exhorted to
look to Abraham their father, and to Sarah that bare them,
and are reminded for their encouragement, how, when he
was but one, God called him, and blessed him, and increased
him.4 He was one, and he inherited the land.5 It is
declared that God will perform the truth to Jacob, and the
mercy to Abraham, which He had sworn to their fathers
from the days of old.6 But further, these patriarchs appear
1 Rel. of Israel, i. p. 101. Another historical passage in Micah, chap. vi.
3, 4, declared by some to be late, is also accepted by Kuenen in this work
(p. 113).
2 Genesis, p. 113. Gunkel's own methods, as will be seen after, are
sufficiently arbitrary.
8 Isa. xli. 8 ; cf. lxiii. 16. 4 Isa. li. 1, 2.
» Ezek. xxxiii. 24. • Mic. vii. 20.

I. THE HISTORY 97
as figures in a connected history, and whatever in the
prophets implies acquaintance with part of that history may
fairly be regarded as implying knowledge of the rest, at
least in its main features. The admitted allusions to Isaac
and Jacob, for instance, and to incidents in the life of the
latter,1 inferentially imply some knowledge of Abraham as
well. But this is by no means the whole. Nothing is surer in
criticism, as was shown in the last chapter, than that, by the
time of Amos and Hosea — i.e., long before the time of the
exile — written histories of the patriarchal period existed,
and were in circulation, embodying the current tradition of
the nation,2 in which Abraham plays so prominent a part.
" When stories were told of Isaac and Ishmael, and Lot and
Esau," says Wellhausen himself, speaking of a time when,
as he thinks, the stories only circulated orally, " everyone
knew at once who these personages were, and how they were
related to Israel, and to one another."3 Is it credible
that the same should not be true of Abraham? What
stories of Isaac, or Ishmael, or Lot, could be in currency in
the days of the monarchy, which did not imply a knowledge
of that patriarch ? Or what stories could be told of Joseph
which did not bring in Jacob, and Judah, and Reuben, and
Benjamin, and the patriarchs generally ? 4 Then what of the
Book of Deuteronomy ? — a prophetic- book, on the theory of
the critics, yet based upon, and saturated with allusions to,
this whole earlier history, including the Abrahamic covenant
and promises.6 Is not this book before Ezekiel, or Isa.
xl.-lxvi, as the critics date the latter ? What, in view of
such facts, becomes of Professor H. P. Smith's " can hardly
be over-estimated" in relation to the historicity of the
1 E.g., Amos vii. 9, 16 (Isaac) ; Hos. xii. 3-5, 12.
2 Professor W. R. Smith says that the story of the patriarchs "is still
recorded to us as it lived in the mouths of the people. . . We still read it
very much as it was read or told in the house of Joseph in the days of Amos
and Hosea." — Prophets, pp. 116, 117.
8 Hist, of Israel, p. 333.
4 Professor Bennett says: "The story of Joseph may be taken as the
account of events which really happened to a historical individual, Joseph,
who really existed. Such history might be supposed to be accurate in
every detail by those who held the strictest theory of verbal inspira
tion." — Genesis, p. 47. But how much of the remaining history is involved
in that of Joseph ? If he is historical, Jacob, Judah, Reuben, etc., are no

longer "personifications."
» Deut. i. 8, vi. 10, etc.

98 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
patriarchs, — because, as he alleges, nothing is heard of
Abraham before Ezekiel ? Does not the use of such
language recoil rather on himself as showing his singular
lack of perspective in dealing with the- subject?
IV. Moses and the Exodus
To the testimony which the prophets and related writings
bear to the period of the patriarchs falls to be added that
of the later historical books, and of the psalms.1 Here,
however, we prefer to cast a glance at the 'Mosaic period,
to which objections of the same kind are made, and to which
the same general considerations, based on the immovable
certainty of the consciousness of the nation as to its own
past, apply. Attention is naturally concentrated in this
connection on two things — the personality of Moses, and
the great deliverance of the Exodus.
1. If there is one personage in Hebrew history about
whose character and doings it might be supposed without
doubt that every Israelite had some knowledge, that person
is Moses. Yet in regard to Moses also we have occasionally
the suggestion that the earlier prophets knew little or
nothing about him;2 and particularly it is argued that
only in the latest period is he definitely connected with a
code of laws. Thus in an authoritative work we read:
" The indications of subsequent literature suggest that Moses
was only gradually connected by tradition with the pro
duction of a continuous body of legislation. . . . Even to
the author of Isa. lxiii. 11 Moses is the heroic leader
under divine guidance to whom Israel owed its liberty
rather than its laws. Malachi is the first of the prophets
to refer to a Mosaic code (iv. 4)." 8
This appears to us, in the light of admitted facts, to
be remarkable reasoning. We go back again to the Book
1 Pss. xlvii. 9, cv. 9, 42, etc. On the Psalms, see Chap. XII.
2 Mic. vi. 4, with its explicit reference to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, is
declared to be an interpolation. Ghillany, an older writer, cannot find
Moses named in the prophets before Malachi. Cf. Kbnig's Hauptprobleme,
pp. 15, 16. Yet besides Mic. vi. 4, which Kuenen accepts as genuine, '
there is Isa. lxiii. 11, and the reference to Moses in Hos. xii. 13. Even
Kautzsch, however, who, on the whole, stands up for a higher conception
of Moses, arbitrarily declares the passage in Hosea to be an interpolation
(" Rel. of Israel," Diet. p. 625).
8 Carpenter, Oxf. Hex. i. p. 19.

I. THE HISTORY 99
of Deuteronomy, alleged by critics to be a work of
" prophets," which, in any case, came to light in the days
of Josiah. This book, in point of form, is a repromulgation
by Moses in the steppes of Moab of the commandments,
statutes, and judgments received by him thirty-eight years
before from God in Horeb, aad by him then communicated to
the people. In it, it will hardly be denied, Moses appears
pre-eminently as the lawgiver. But the book itself, it is
now well recognised, presupposes the older code of laws
in the "Book of the Covenant" of Ex. xx.-xxiii. More
over, not only are the laws Mosaic, but both the " Book of
the Covenant," and the " law " of Deuteronomy, are declared
to have been written by Moses.1 What then does the writer
of the above-quoted passage mean by saying that " for the
pre-exilian seers there was no fixed and definite 'law'
recorded in precise and definite form " ? 2 Was Deuteronomy
not a law-book ? The Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy
and of the " Book of the Covenant " may be disputed ; but
can it be denied that " tradition " at any rate had by that
time come to regard Moses as a lawgiver, and in the fullest
and most "definite" way ascribed the laws of the nation
to him, or to God through him? There is the further
argument from the JE histories. Already in these histories,
which antecede the time of written prophecy, and extend,
in the view of the critics, to the conquest, there is
embodied the whole history of the Exodus, of the lawgiving
at Sinai, of the covenant, of the events of the wilderness,
of the entrance into Canaan. How then could any Israelite
or prophet of that or any subsequent time possibly be
ignorant of the role of Moses as a lawgiver ? How could
the writer of Isa. lxiii. 11 be ignorant of it ? It is amazing
that the critics do not see more clearly the force of their
own admissions in these matters. If Deuteronomy was
promulgated in the reign of Josiah; if the JE histories
existed a century and a half earlier; it is a strange in
consequence to talk of the paucity of references in the
prophets before Malachi as showing that Moses was not
1 Ex. xxiv. 4 ; Deut. xxxi. 24. See below; Chap. VIII. pp. 262 ff.
3 As above. Kautzsch says : " Over against this [scanty mention] must
be set the fact that, throughout the Old Testament, all the various legisla
tions ... are said to have been introduced, and in part even written
down by him."—" Rel. of Israel," Diet. p. 626.

ioo THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
connected in the Israelitish mind with the work of
legislation.1 The basis of the argument is greatly strengthened, if,
from the references to legislation, we extend our view to
the. related history. Here, again, it is to be remembered,
the history goes in a piece. The people who knew of the
Exodus, of the Red Sea deliverance, and of the wilderness
journeyings, knew also of Sinai, of the covenant of their
nation with God, and of the commandments and laws on
which the covenant was based. It seems futile to contend,
with Professor W. R. Smith, that " the early history and the
prophets do not use the Sinaitic legislation as the basis of
their conception of the relation of Jehovah to Israel, but
habitually go back to the deliverance from Egypt, and from
it pass directly to the wilderness wanderings and the
conquest of Canaan."2 The Levitical legislation, if that
is meant, the history and prophets do not use, — no part of
Scripture uses the Levitical law as the basis of God's
relation to Israel, — but it is hard to see how anyone can
imagine that either prophets or people could be familiar
with the Exodus and the wilderness wanderings, and leave
out of view, or be indifferent to, that which forms the
kernel of the whole history, — the covenant which God
made with the nation through Moses; when, as Jeremiah
says, He " brought them out of the land of Egypt, from the
iron furnace, saying, Obey My voice, and do them [the words
of the covenant], according to all which I command you";3
or when, as Hosea expresses it, He espoused the nation to
Himself in the wilderness, in the days of its youth.4 Are
we to suppose that the prophets (even Jeremiah) were
ignorant of the recapitulation of the law of Horeb in
Deuteronomy? 2. It is true, nevertheless, that the great fact in which the
consciousness of Israel ever rooted itself, as that which first
gave the nation its freedom, and made it a nation, was the
Exodus, with which is constantly associated the deliverance
at the Red Sea. It was remarked at the beginning that we
have only to reflect on the nature of such an event as the
1 The position of Moses as legislator is further discussed in Chap. VI.
Of. pp. 151 ff.
2 Prophets, p. 111. 'Jer. xi. 4.
4 Hos. ii. 15 ; cf. viii. 1. The passages are among those cited by Pro
fessor Smith himself. See Note B on the Covenant with Israel.

I. THE HISTORY 101
Exodus to see that, if it really happened, it could never
again be forgotten by the people whose redemption it was.
Some things in a nation's history may be forgotten; of
others the memory is indelible. Could the English people
ever forget the Normans and the Conquest; the Scottish,
Bannockburn or Flodden, or the events of their Reforma
tion; Americans, Bunker's Hill or the Declaration of
Independence ? Yet these are small matters compared
with what the Exodus, and the events which followed it,
were to the Israelites. When we turn, accordingly, to the
poetical and prophetical books of the Old Testament, we
find that, amidst all the vicissitudes in their fortunes, the
memory of the Exodus, with its attendant circumstances,
never was obliterated, but remained fresh and green in the
minds of the people as long as their national life lasted.
In song, and psalm, and prophecy, the echoes of this
wonderful deliverance in Egypt and at the Red Sea ring
down their history till its close.1 The same difficulty meets
us here, indeed, as before, that the historical and prophetical
books are not allowed to be used as witnesses till they have
been critically adjusted, and, in the multitude of editors
and redactors among whom their contents are parcelled out,
it is never hard to find a way of getting rid of an incon
venient testimony. Apart, however, from the direct narra
tives, which, in their freshness, force, and dramatic power,
speak so unmistakably to the liveliness of the impression
under which they were composed, the literature en bloc is a
witness to the vivid recollection of the essential facts. An
old monument is the Song of Miriam at the Red Sea, in
Ex. xv., the genuineness of which there are no good grounds
for disputing.2 Joshua and Samuel go back on these facts
in rehearsing the great deeds of God for their nation.3
1 Cf. Ex. xv. ; Josh. xxiv. 4-7 ; 1 Sam. xii. 6 ff. ; 1 Kings viii. 16,
51-53; Pss. xliv. 1, lxxvii. 12-20, lxxviii., etc.; Amos ii. 9, 10; Hos.
xi. 1 ; xii. 13 ; Isa. li. 9, 10 ; Jer. ii. 6, etc. ; Deut. iv. 34 ; xvi. 3, 6, 12 ;
xxvi. 5, etc.
2 Dr. Driver says : " Probably the greater part of the Song is Mosaic, and
the modification or expansion is limited to the closing verses ; for the
general style is antique, and the triumphant tone which pervades it is
just such as might naturally have been inspired by the event which it
celebrates." — Introd. p. 30.
8 References as above. Josh. xxiv. is usually ascribed by the critics to
E, with later touches. 1 Sam. xii. 6 ff. is attributed by Kautzsch to his
Saul-Source in the tenth or ninth century b.o. H. P. Smith, on the other

102 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Solomon dwells on them in his speech and prayer at the
dedication of the temple.1 They appear as the motive to
obedience in the Decalogue,2 in the discourses and legislation
in the Book of Deuteronomy, and in the Levitical Code
known to critics as the "Law of Holiness,"3 assigned by
very many to an early date. Amos, Hosea, Jeremiah, and
the other prophets appeal to them ; and they inspire many
of the psalms. These recollections of the nation we can
fully trust. " No nation," as Professor Kautzsch says, " ever
gratuitously invented the report that it had been ignomini-
ously enslaved by another; none ever forgot the days of
its deliverance. And so through all the centuries there
survived in Israel the inextinguishable recollection that it
was once delivered out of Egypt, the house of bondage, by
Jahweh, the God of its fathers, with a strong hand and
outstretched arm ; that specially at the passage of the Red
Sea it experienced the mighty protection of its God."4
This knowledge dwells, not as a vague reminiscence, but as
a strong, definite, historical assurance, in the heart of the
nation, and it is as inconceivable that Israel should be
mistaken about it, as that a grown man should forget the
scenes of his boyhood, or episodes of his early life that
burned themselves into his very soul.
The confidence which the dramatic vividness and tone
of reality in the Mosaic history beget in us is not dissipated
by the often far-fetched criticism to which its details are
subjected by writers like Colenso, in search of arithmetical
and other "contradictions" and " impossibilities." This
criticism will come before us for consideration after ; 6 mean
while it would be well if those who urge these objections to the
hand, holds it to be exilian. Driver, following Budde, ranks it as pre-
Deuteronomic, etc. See below, p. 386.
1 Kautzsch says that "in his speech dedicatory of the temple, 1 Kings
viii. 12 ff., we have an authentic monument of the time of Solomon." He
apparently attributes, however, vers. 14-43 to the " Deuteronomist "
{LU. of O.T., pp. 12, 241). The LXX derives vers. 12, 13 from "the
book of the Song."
2 Ex. xx. 2 ; Dent. v. 6, 15.
8 Lev. xix. 36 ; xxii. 33 ; xxiii. 48 ; xxv. 55, eto. On this Code see
below, pp. 308 ff.
4 Lit. of O.T., p. 9 ; cf. his "Rel. of Israel," Diet. p. 631. It is the
more unaccountable that, acknowledging the essential facts, Kautzsch
should sit so loosely to the history as given. He rejects, e.g., the upbringing
of Moses at the court of Pharaoh.
• See below, Chap. X. pp. 362 ff.

I. THE HISTORY 103
truth of the history would reflect a little on the difficulties
which,, on the other side, attach to their own too hasty
rejection of it. After all, these things which the Mosaic
books record were not, any more than the events in Christ's
life, to which Paul appealed before Agrippa, "done in a
corner." 1 They were public events, in the fullest sense of
the term. Does it involve no strain on belief to say that an
event so extraordinary as, in any case, the Exodus of Israel
from Egypt must be admitted to have been,2 happened in
the full light of one of the most brilliant civilisations of the
time, and yet that the people who came out, with a leader
like Moses at their head, did not know, or could not re
member, or could ever possibly forget, how it happened?
The Israelites themselves, as we have seen, did not believe
they did not know. They had but one story to give of it
all down their history — the same story which, in circum
stantial detail, is embodied in these old books. If this is
hot how the Israelites got out of Egypt, will the critic, in
turn, furnish us with some plausible explanation of how
they did get out ? It is here as in the discussion of the
origins of Christianity. It is not enough to discredit the
Gospels and the Acts; the critic must be prepared to
show how, if these are rejected, Christianity did originate.
So, in the case of the Exodus, it is not enough to discredit
the one history we have of that event; the critic has to
show how, if the whole history was different from that
which we possess, it came about that no echo of it was
preserved in Israel, and that this lifelike, vivid, detailed
narration came to take its place. It is admitted, with few
extreme exceptions, that the people of Israel were once in
Egypt; that they were in bitter bondage; that Egypt at
the time was ruled over by one or other of its powerful
nionarchs ; that they came out, not by war, but peaceably ;
that they were at least tolerably numerous, with women,
children, and cattle; that they found their way, under
pursuit, — so Wellhausen allows, — across the Red Sea. Is
it unfair to ask — How did they make their way out ?
Theories of course there are : ingenuity, when freed from
1 Acts xxvi. 26.
3 Cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 432-33 : "His design was aided
in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a marvellous occurrence, quite beyond his
control, and which no sagacity could possibly have foreseen.

104

THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—

the necessity of respecting facts, is equal to anything. But
have they warrant, or even verisimilitude ? 1 It is easy to
pen sentences about an " escape " of nomadic tribes on the
border, in whom the despotic policy of the Pharaoh had
awakened " the innate love of freedom " ; 2 or to hazard the
conjecture that there was a slipping away of the tribes one
by one;3 but such speculations, alongside of which the
Egyptian story of an expulsion of lepers is respectable,
conflict with tradition, and break on the hard facts of the
situation. For the Israelites were no loose conglomeration
of tribes on the border.4 According to every testimony,
they occupied a wide territory, dwelt in houses, were the
victims of a systematic oppression,6 were engaged in forced
labour, were broken-spirited, under strict surveillance of
tyrannical overseers, etc. How, in these circumstances, was
furtive escape possible ? Where is there analogy for such a
horde of " runaway slaves " finding their way out of bondage,
and defying the power of a mighty king to bring them back ?'
It is a simple method to reject history as we have it, and
evolve hypotheses, but the process is not always as satis
factory as it is simple. There is need in this case for the
" strong hand " and " stretched-out arm."
V. Internal Character of Narratives a Guarantee
for Historicity
Attention may now be given to the internal character
of the narratives, and to the bearings of this on their
credibility. It sounds paradoxical, yet it is the case, that internal
evidence of truthfulness is sometimes such as to outweigh
in value even external evidence, and to support confidence
in a narrative where external evidence is lacking or dis
puted. Had we, for instance, no external evidence for the
Gospels, — did they come to us for the first time from
1 See Note C on Theories of the Exodus.
2 Thus Kuenen ; cf. Colenso, Pent. Pt. vi. p. 600.
8 This theory is thought to find support in indications of the presence of
the tribes of Asher (W. Max Miiller ; cf. Hommel, Heb. Trad. p. 228) and
Judah (Jastrow) in Palestine prior to the Exodus. The facts probably
really point to an earlier date for the Exodus. Cf. below, Chap. XI. pp. 422 ff.
4 Cf. above, p. 79.
6 Note the recurrence of " house of bondage " in history, law, prophecy.

I. THE HISTORY 105
unknown hands, — it might still be possible to argue that
the holy and gracious Personage portrayed in them was no
invention, but a drawing from a divine Original. In like
manner it may be contended that there are internal marks
which support our confidence in the patriarchal and Mosaic
histories, apart from all reasoning as to the age of documents,
or mode of transmission of the traditions. Something has
already been said of the teleologioal character of the narra
tives ; the argument may, however, now be widened to in
clude a number of other features, hardly less remarkable. We
draw our illustrations chiefly from the patriarchal age.
1. A first question relates to the general credibility of
the patriarchal narratives. Discussion of alleged historical
and chronological "contradictions" can stand over; but
what of the credibility of the narratives as a whole ? Here
we willingly avail ourselves of the well-weighed judgment
of a moderate critic like Dr. Driver. "The patriarchal
narratives," Dr. Driver says, " are marked by great sobriety
of statement and representation. There are no incredible
marvels, no fantastic extravagances, no surprising miracles ;
the miraculous hardly extends beyond manifestations and
communications of the Deity to the earlier patriarchs, and
in the case of Joseph there are not even these : 1 the events
of his life move on by the orderly sequence of natural cause
and effect. There is also a great moderation in the claims
made on behalf of the patriarchs." He goes on to ask :
"Do the patriarchal narratives contain intrinsic historical
improbabilities ? Or, in other words, is there anything
intrinsically improbable in the lives of the several patriarchs,
and the vicissitudes through which they severally pass ? "
And he answers : " Though particular details in them may
be improbable (e.g., Gen. xix. 31 ff. [?]),2 and though the
representations may in parts be coloured by the religious
and other associations of the age in which they were
written, it cannot be said that the biographies of the first
three patriarchs, as told in JE, are, speaking generally,
historically improbable : the movements and personal lives
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are, taken on the whole,
credible." 3
1 Cf. Professor Bennett on Joseph, above, p. 97.
2 See below, p. 115.
8 Genesis, pp. xiv, xlvi Exception is taken by Dr. Driver, however, to

io6 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
The witness here borne is true. Nothing is more
striking to an impartial mind than the sobriety of tone and
sparingness of miracle in the Book of Genesis, where, on
the legendary theory, one would expect a superabundance
of marvels. To say, as is done, for instance, in the
article, "Hexateuch," in Hastings' Dictionary, that, "in J
the most 'wonderful phenomena appear quite natural, the
writer feels himself in an ideal fairy land in which no
wonders are surprising,"1 is to convey a quite misleading
impression. Apart from the theophanies to the patriarchs,
and a few instances of revelations in dreams, there is but
one recorded miracle in the whole long period from Abraham
to Moses — the destruction of the cities of the plain, and
even this, like the Noachian deluge, is connected with
physical causes. If the birth of Isaac is reckoned another,
there are two. This, as one has said,2 is a frugal provision
of signs and wonders for the first foundation of an economy
by which all families of the earth were to be blessed. In
this respect the patriarchal period presents a marked
contrast to the period of the Exodus, which is distinguished
by the number, frequency, and stupendous character of its
miracles. All the remaining miracles of the Old Testament,
in fact, are scarcely so numerous and striking as those
which are crowded into this single generation. But this
again is intelligible from the nature of the case. It is
characteristic of the miracles of the Bible that they are
never mere prodigies, or aimless displays of power, but
stand in intimate connection with, and strict subordination
to, the ends of revelation. It need stagger no one that the
Exodus took place, and the foundations of the covenant
with Israel as a nation were laid, amidst surpassing mani
festations of divine power and grace, designed to produce
an indelible impression on the minds of the beholders, and
burn into their hearts a grateful sense of their indebtedness
to Jehovah. And this end, as we saw from the history, was
effectually attained.
2. As another point in the argument from internal
character, which powerfully supports belief in the historicity
the chronology "as it stands." A particular example from an article by
Dr. Driver in the Contemporary Review, lvii, p. 221, is considered in Note D,
on the Patriarchal Chronology.
1 Diet of Bible, ii. p. 372.
2 Birks.

L THE HISTORY 107
of the patriarchal narratives, we may note the unity of the
picture of the patriarchs in the various sources. There are,
we are assured, three main strands of narrative, at least, in
Genesis, — in the case of Abraham there are four, for Gen.
xiv. is allowed to be a source by itself, — yet it is the same
personages, the same environment, the same doings, the
same idiosyncrasies, essentially, which we have in each.
" There is," as Wellhausen himself declares, " no primitive
legend so well-knit as the Biblical one." 1 Nor is this simply
a matter of artificial arrangement. " This connection," he
says, "is common in its main features to all the sources
alike. The Priestly Code runs, as to its historical thread,
quite parallel to the Jehovist history."2 Again: "In the
history of the patriarchs also, the outlines of the narrative
are the same in Q [ = P] and in JE. We find in both,
Abraham's immigration into Canaan with Sarah and Lot,
his separation from Lot, the birth of Ishmael by Hagar,
the appearance of God for the promise of Isaac, Isaac's
birth, the death of Sarah and Abraham, Ishmael, Isaac's
marriage with Rebekah, Jacob and Esau, Jacob's journey to
Mesopotamia, and the foundation of his family there, his
return, Esau, Joseph in Egypt, Jacob in Egypt, Jacob's
blessing on Joseph and his sons, his death and burial." 8
Closer observation discovers that the case for unity is
even stronger than Wellhausen represents it. The sources
specified not only presuppose the same persons and the
same history, but are so interwoven as to constitute a
compact single narrative of which the several parts imply,
and depend on, each other. E.g., the change of the names
of Abram and Sarai in Gen. xvii. into Abraham and Sarah
governs the rest of the story,4 and there are continual
similar interfacings. Wellhausen, in fact, overstates the
matter when he says that all the above details are found
in each of the three sources. It is not the case, e.g., that
the birth of Ishmael, or the death of Abraham, is mentioned
in JE.5 The separation of sources only makes the problem
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 295.
3 Ibid. By " Jehovist " Wellhausen means the combined J and E.
8 Ibid. p. 318.
4 This is assumed to be the work of a redactor. See below, p. 220.
5 Wellhausen points out {Compos, d. Hex. pp. 27, 28) that Abraham
disappears irom view in Gen. xxiv., and (quite arbitrarily) conjectures that
originally ver. 67, "Isaac was comforted after his mother's death," may

108 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
harder; for the unity which exists in the book as it is
disappears when its parts are sundered. Abundant illustra
tion is given in later chapters,1 and only an example or two
need be cited here. Thus, Harah is assumed in JE as the
place where Abraham received his call,2 but, with the
elimination of Gen. xi. 31, xii. 45, 5, assigned to P, the
reference to Haran in the story of Abraham's migrations
disappears. So no explanation is given in J of " the land "
which Abraham, chap. xii. 6, is said to have passed through :
it is P, in ver. 5, who tells us it was " the land of Canaan."
It has been mentioned that the death of Abraham
is not recorded in JE. But, strangely enough, it is in
P alone, on the current analysis, that an account is found
of the deaths of any of the patriarchs.3 In JE the account
of Jacob's funeral is actually given before any allusion to
his decease.4 This had preceded in T. Apart, however,
from such details, which might be indefinitely multiplied,
the entire picture of the patriarchs, alike in their personal
characters, their attitude to God, the promises made to
them, and of the persons connected, with them in the story,
as Sarah, Lot, Hagar, Ishmael, Esau, is identical throughout,
and leaves essentially the same impression on the mind in
all the supposed sources. Thus, in the P narrative of
Abraham's dealings with the sons of Heth in Gen. xxiii,
he appears as " a mighty prince " (ver. 6) ; with this agrees
the picture of him in chap, xiv — a separate source — as
the possessor of 318 trained servants, born in his own
house. 3. This leads us to remark that the figure of Abraham
might almost be adduced as of itself a guarantee of the
historicity of the narrative in which it is embodied. It is
difficult, indeed, in our familiarity with the story, rightly to
estimate the nobility and grandeur of the personality that
here presents itself. To speak of Abraham's faith is to
touch the central and most conspicuous point in his great
ness; yet it must not be overlooked that this faith is only
the highest expression of a largeness of soul which manifests
have read, "after his father's death." Addis actually adopts this con
jecture into his text !
1 Cf. Chaps. VII., X.
3 Gen. xxiv. 4, 7, 10 ; cf. xxvii. 43.
8 Gen. xxv. 7-10 ; xxxv. 28, 29 ; xlix. 28-33 ; 1. 12, 18.
4 Gen. 1. 15.

I. THE HISTORY 109
itself in all the aspects of his character. As instances of
this magnanimity, with which is joined a rare meekness,
peaceableness, and unselfishness, together with a never-
failing courtesy and politeness, we need only refer to his
dealings with Lot about the choice of a settlement,1 his
relations with the king of Sodom and with Melchizedek,2
and his negotiations with the sons of Heth about a burying-
place for his dead.8 But this is only one side of his
character. Wellhausen was never further astray than when
he spoke of this patriarch as unmanly. With his gentleness
and reasonableness of disposition were united, as the rescue
of Lot showed, the most conspicuous courage and decision.
Abraham was no mere wealthy sheikh; no mere stay-at-
home watcher by the sheepfolds. His was a strong as well
as a meek nature. Sarah, his wife, though in many respects
a noble woman, worthy of such a husband, is a far inferior
character. She moves throughout on a lower level. Stead
fast and loyal in her affection to her lord, and moved by a
true religious feeling, she has not Abraham's strength of
faith, tends to be haughty, imperious, and impatient, can
brook no rival, is stung by Hagar's conduct, though she
was herself to blame for putting the girl in her false posi
tion, complained petulantly to Abraham, treated her maid
with intolerable harshness, and finally would be content
with nothing but the expulsion of Hagar and Ishmael
from the household. In comparison with her, the strong,
patient, much-enduring Abraham appears greater than
ever. Yet there is no attempt to picture Abraham as faultless.
It is, indeed, difficult to understand how a man whose faith
was uniformly so strong should so far yield to fear as twice,
according to the history, to stoop to falsehood or evasion to
conceal his true relation to his wife. It was not a casual
lapse, but seems to have been part of a settled policy, that
Abraham should pass off Sarah as his sister, when travelling
in dangerous parts.4 One can only say of it, that, by
whatever excuses Abraham may have sought to justify his
behaviour to himself, it was a course of conduct unworthy of
him, indefensible even with such moral knowledge as. he
possessed, inexcusable in the eyes of God,< and certain to
1 Gen. xiii. 2 Gen. xiv. 8 Gen. xxiii.
4 Gen. xx. 13. On this incident, see below, Chap. VII. pp. 237 ff.

HO THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
involve him, as it actually did, in much danger and
unhappiness. The highest point of view, however, in which to consider
Abraham in these narratives is in his connection with the
plan and purpose of revelation. Alike on the divine and
the human sides, we are here in presence of transactions
unsurpassed in the Old Testament in interest and import
ance. The call of Abraham — the covenant made with him
— is the beginning of a new era in the religious history of
mankind.1 The faith with which Abraham responded to
that call, and, in prompt and unhesitating obedience to the
divine word, left home and kindred to go to a land which
yet he knew not ; his patient waiting, in spite of apparent
natural obstacles, for the fulfilment of the promise of a son ;
his disinterested and lofty intercession for Sodom; above
all, the great act of surrender of Isaac on the altar at
Moriah, in undoubting confidence, apparently, that God was
able to give his son back to him, even if from the dead,2 —
in general, his habitual enduring as seeing Him who is
invisible, — all show the magnificent greatness of this man,
as, to the end of time, the Father of the Faithful ! It is this
unique and profoundly significant character which the
revolutionary criticism would dissipate into unsubstantial
myth or legend. But the thing cannot be done. What
legend can effect for the life of Abraham is sufficiently
evidenced by the fables and stories in Jewish, Mohammedan,
and Persian sources. The history of Abraham in the Bible
stands, from internal evidence alone, on an entirely different
footing from these. In its simple, coherent, elevated
character, its organic unity with the rest of revelation, its
freedom from the puerility and extravagance which mark
the products of the myth-forming spirit, it approves itself
as a serious record of important events, the knowledge of
which had been carefully preserved — possibly at an early
age had been written down 3 — and the essential contents of
which we may safely trust.
1 Cf. the fine remarks of Mozley on Abraham, Ruling Ideas, etc , pp.
21 ff. 2 Heb. xi. 17-19 ;,ef. Mozley, p. 60.
8 Cf. Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 277, 296 ; and see below,
p. 575.

I. THE HISTORY m

VI. Fidelity of Narratives to Patriarchal Conditions
One of the most pronounced internal signatures of the
truth of the patriarchal history is undoubtedly found in its
primitive character, and its simplicity of ideas and worship,
as compared with later stages of revelation.
1. This appears on the surface in the fact that the
patriarchal history moves in primitive conditions, and keeps
true to these throughout. The patriarchs have a character
of their own, and are not modelled after the pattern of
heroes, and prophets, and warriors of a later time.1 They
live their own free life under the open heaven, moving from
place to place, building their altars, and calling on the name
of Jehovah. Their thoughts, hopes, interests, outlook into
the future, are all relatively simple. They are untroubled
by the problems and mental conflicts of later times, — the
problems met with in Job, for instance, or in some of the
psalms, — even their temptations, as in the command to
sacrifice Isaac, are those of a primitive age. It is generally
agreed, therefore, that it would not be possible to assign a
late date to the narratives in Genesis on the ground of that
book alone.2 Many critics, no doubt, think otherwise, and
fancy they can see in the narratives in question reflections
of almost the whole political history of Israel, — the revolt of
Moab, the contempt for the wild Arabs on the south-west
border, the subjection and revolt of Edom, the Syrian wars,3
the prosperity and pride of the Northern Kingdom, etc.4
But it may safely be affirmed that most of these supposed
mirrorings of later conditions are imaginary. Gunkel
recently has cogently argued that the narratives in Genesis
— " legends " as he calls them — are far more distinguished
by contrast to the later period than by resemblance. With
1 Cf. Robertson, Early Religion, p. 126.
2 "The Book of Genesis," says Kuenen, "may here be left out of
account, since the picture it contains of the age of the patriarchs gives us no
unequivocal indications of the period at which it was produced " — Hex.
p. 42. " The question ofthedates of the sources of which the Book of Genesis
is composed," says Dr. Driver, "cannot be properly answered from a consider
ation of this book alone," etc. — Genesis, p. xv. See below, Chap. X. p. 273.
8 See above, p. 74.
4 A large pollection of these may be seen in the Introduction to Mr.
Pripp's book on The Composition cf Genesis, written from the standpoint of
Stade.

112 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM —
one exception, that of the revolt of Edom (regarded by him
as a later addition),1 he can find no trace of reflection of
political events after 900 B.C., and the narratives themselves
he takes to be much older — completed by the time of the
Judges. He points out that there is no trace of the
sanctuary at Jerusalem, of the kingdom of Saul, of the
conflict of Saul with David, of the kingdom in its united
form under David and Solomon, of the division and wars of
the separate kingdoms, of the frightful Syrian wars, etc.
As little, he argues, is there any trace of the later conflicts
of the prophets against image-worship, Asherahs, macgebas
(pillars), high places ; the worship of the patriarchs, on the
contrary, is naive and free, and betrays no sense of the
existence of these bitter contests.2 Gunkel's own theory of.
the origin of the patriarchal stories is, we grant, as untenable
as any which he criticises ; s but he is surely right, at any
rate, in his defence of their relative antiquity.
2. We observe next, in partial anticipation of subsequent
discussion, that the religious ideas, and forms of worship, in
the patriarchal history, are those which suit an early
stage of revelation, and would not be in place later. The
patriarchs worship one God — there is no trace of any other
in Genesis4 — but their worship is of the simplest order:
prayer and sacrifice. There are no temples or fixed
sanctuaries. The only ceremonial rite is circumcision ; the
one suggestion of Levitical prescriptions is in the distinction
of clean and unclean animals, and this is found in J,6 not in
P. The form of revelation is not, as in the prophetic age,
internal, but is predominatingly objective — by dream, vision,
theophany, or through the Mal'ach, or " Angel of Jehovah."
This last mode of revelation is one deserving of special
attention. The doctrine of angels generally is undeveloped
in these earlier books. The critics note it as a mark of P
that he does not introduce angels; but even in J and E
angels are brought in very sparingly. In E they are only
1 On Edom, see below, p. 209.
3 Genesis, Introd. pp. lxi-lxiii. Cf. Note E on Gunkel's Theory of
Patriarchal History.
8 It is surprising that Gunkel does not see that his argument is as cogent
against the late writing down of the narratives in their present form (ninth
and eighth centuries) as against their composition in or near that age. The
" mirrorings " are a chief reason for the later dating.
4 See below, p. 124.
• In the story of the flood, Gen. vii. 2, 8 ; viii. 20.

I. THE HISTORY 113
introduced twice, and then collectively — in Jacob's dream at
Bethel,1 and again at Mahanaim, when " the angels of God "
— "God's host"2 — met him. J mentions "angels," in
forms of men, at the destruction of Sodom.8 The apparent
exception to this reticence, the appearances of the
" Angel of Jehovah," or " Angel of God," is really a striking
confirmation of our argument. For this form of revelation
is one almost peculiar to the earlier periods — patriarchal and
Mosaic — and stands by itself. " The Angel of Jehovah " is
not an ordinary angel, like those in the above passages, but
is a peculiar manifestation of Jehovah in the creaturely
sphere, for purposes of revelation. Jehovah's name is in
him; he is distinct from Jehovah, yet again mysteriously
identified with Him; in address his name is interchanged
with that of Jehovah ; he is worshipped as Jehovah.4 How
came so remarkable a conception to be there in this early
age, and how came it to be confined to this age ? It is
certainly no creation of the prophetic mind, and can only be
explained as the tradition of a well-known form of revela
tion of the older time.
3. The idea of God Himself in these narratives is ap
propriate to that early age, and is readily distinguishable
from the more developed conceptions of later epochs of
revelation. Without discussing at present the divine names
as the basis of a theory of documents,6 we can at least say
that the names of God proper to the patriarchal history —
El, Elohim, El Ely on, El Shaddai — are those which re
present God under the most general forms of His being and
manifestation, and in this respect stand in contrast with the
name Jehovah, as, in its fullest significance, the covenant-
name of the God of Israel. El, the most generic of all, is
the only name that enters into the composition of proper
names in Genesis. It corresponds with the Babylonian Ilu,
but is not ordinarily used without some predicative designa
tion—El Elyon (God Most High), El Olam (God Everlast-
1 Gen. xxviii. 12. a Gen. xxxii. 1, 2.
8 Gen. xix. 1, 15.
4 Cf. Gen.'xvi. 7, 11, 13 ; xxi. 17 ff. ; xxii. 12, 14, 15 ; xxxi. 11-13 ; xlviii.
15, 16 ; Ex. iii. 2, 6 ; xiii. 21 ; xiv. 19, 24 ; xxiii. 20 ff., etc. On the views
taken of these appearances and their significance, see the works on O.T.
Theology of Oehler, Schultz, Dillmann, Smend, etc. (Oehler, i. pp. 183 ff.,
has good remarks); art. "Angel" by Dr. A. B. Davidson in Diet, of
Bible, etc.
» See below, pp. 221 ff.
8

114 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
ing), etc. Elohim, a plural form with a singular sense, is
peculiar to Israel, and is likewise general in signification.
It denotes God as the God of creation and providence. El
Shaddai, again, marks a distinct stage in patriarchal revela
tion,1 but seems still, like the two former names, to be
connected with the idea of power.2 The fuller manifest
ation of the divine attributes implied in, or to be historically
connected with, the name Jehovah, lay yet in the future.
It is true that in the sections of Genesis ascribed by
criticism to J the name Jehovah is carried back into the
days of the patriarchs — is put even into the mouth of Eve.3
Even there, however, careful observation of the phenomena
will suggest that while, in the view of the narrator, the
name Jehovah was not unknown in earlier times, it is used
by him sparingly and with discrimination in comparison
with other designations — often is used simply proleptically.4
Its absence in proper names is a testimony to this dis
crimination in its use.
The ideas of the divine attributes suggested by these
names, though high, are yet in many respects undeveloped,
relatively to later stages of revelation. What later Scripture
means by the holiness, righteousness, wrath against sin,
condescending grace, and covenant-keeping faithfulness of
God, is, indeed, everywhere implied. God is the Judge of
all the earth, doing right. He accepts and saves the
righteous, and overwhelms a sinful world, or sinful cities,
like Sodom and Gomorrah, with His judgments. Yet the
terms " holy," " righteousness," " wrath," " love," are not yet
found. The word " holy " first appears in connection with
the revelations at the Exodus.5 Schultz, in his Old Testa
ment Theology, speaks of "the impression of the terrible
God of the Semites " in earlier times, and says " the ancient
Hebrews, too, tremble before a mysterious wrath of God." 6
1 Gen. xvii. 1 ; xliii. 14 ; xlix. 25 ; cf. Ex. vi. 3.
2 The etymology of this, as of the other names, is uncertain, but
probably the root-idea is power (God Almighty). The power denoted by
El Shaddai is power exercised within the sphere of revelation, e.g., in the
promise of a son to Abraham. Cf. Driver on "The Names of God" in
Genesis, pp. 402 ff. ; Ottley, Aspects of O.T., pp. 181 ff. ; also Oehler, O.T.
Theol. i. pp. 128 ff.
• Gen. iv. 1 (LXX, however, has "God").
4 See Note F on the Name Jehovah in the Patriarchal Age, and Note B
to Chap. V.
6 Ex. iii. 5 ; xv. 11. » 0. T. Theol. ii. p. 175.

I. THE HISTORY I15
He strangely forgets that, on his own hypothesis, the
passages he cites in proof are all from the very latest parts
of the Pentateuch — from P. The Book of Genesis has no
mention of the " wrath," any more than of the " holiness,"
of God — a fact the more striking that the writers are
familiar with these ideas in Exodus.1 But the limits of the
earlier revelation are in the former book carefully preserved.
4. As it is with the idea of God, so, we observe lastly,
it is with the ethical conceptions of the patriarchs. These
again, as already seen, are relatively high, yet fall short in
many respects of the ethical standards of the period of the
prophets. Abraham marries his half-sister ; Jacob marries
two sisters, Leah and Rachel ; the custom is recognised of
the childless wife giving a handmaid as concubine to the
husband for the purpose of obtaining children by her — a
custom now so singularly attested by the provisions of
the Code of Hammurabi as belonging to that age.2 The
conduct of the daughters of Lot in Gen. xix. 30 ff., and that
of Judah in chap, xxxviii., shock our moral sense, but are
in keeping with the degrading offer made by Lot of his
daughters to the men of Sodom. The patriarchs Abraham
and Isaac fail in a due sense of the sin involved in their
conduct about their wives. With all the religious and
ethical elevation we must ascribe to the patriarchs, there
fore, Kuenen is not borne out in his formerly-quoted remark
that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are pictured as "not in
ferior to the prophets of the eighth century B.C., in pure-
ness of religious insight and inward spiritual piety."3
When we advance to Exodus, we are conscious of a great
progress. The writers are, on the theory, the same, and
the history is the continuation of the preceding. Yet
everything is on a changed and grander scale. The ideas
are deeper; the scene is larger and more imposing; the
forces at work are more titanic; the issues are more
1 Cf. arts. "Anger" and "Love,"' in Diet, of Bible. A similar line of
argument is developed in Dr. Watson's little work, The Book Genesis a True
History, which we had not seen before writing this. Dr. Driver singularly
misses the point of Dr. Watson's argument in supposing it to prove only
that the narratives reached their present form before the age when Amos,
Hosea etc., "began to emphasise and develop beliefs and truths such as
those referred to " {Genesis, p. xlviii). Dr. Watson's argument turns on the
contrast of Genesis with Exodus, which was likewise prior to that age, yet
has these ideas.
2 Code (Johns' edition), sects. 144-47. 8 See above, p. 60.

116 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
tremendous. The hour has come for Jehovah to fulfil His
promises to the fathers. The instrument is prepared ; the
yoke of bondage is to be broken ; the people are to be led
forth to breathe the air of liberty in the desert, and, as
redeemed, to make voluntary dedication of themselves to
their Deliverer. With this access of religious enthusiasm,
and unparalleled experience of divine grace, goes of necessity
an immense uplifting both in the religious ideas and in the
standard of ethical obligation. The people have now given
them " statutes and judgments " which are to serve as the
norm of moral conduct. The ideal set before them is
nothing less than the holiness of Jehovah Himself. They
are to be a " holy " people to Him,1 and are to prove their
fidelity by obedience to His voice. The scenes in this
great drama are depicted with a realism and fresco-like
vividness of colouring which irresistibly suggest that the
narratives were written under the recent impression of the
events which they record : when, at least, the vividness, of
that impression had not yet faded from the memory and
heart of the nation. The strands of the story may be
multiple, — that is yet to be inquired into, — but we cannot
admit that they are diverse. Moses and Aaron are the
central figures in the history, but, as in the case of the
patriarchal narratives, the portraits of the two are the same
in J, E, P, D alike. It is one and the same Moses, with
one and the same Aaron beside, him, who appears in all the
so-called " sources," and mediates, under God, the freedom
and covenant-organisation of the nation.
1 Ex. xix. 6.

CHAPTER V
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"The re purr ov fevSot, historically considered, of Graf, Kuenen, and all
their followers, consists in this : that they make use of the variety of
material afforded them for positively constructing a history of ancient
Israel, only to destroy the possibility of such a history. This they appear
to do, not so much because of the discrepancies which exist in the
materials, as because of their predetermination to reject as untrustworthy
all the materials which partake largely of the Hebrew belief in the super
natural. " — Ladd.
"The view of Israel's early history, offered by any writer, will largely
depend upon his thought of Israel's God." — J. E. Carpenter.
"We must first firmly assert that, while there have been different forms
of monotheism in many peoples and at various times, nevertheless Israel
is and remains the classical people of monotheism ; of that monotheism
which we confess, or, more strictly, which is the precursor of ours ; and
in Israel this monotheism is of native origin : we know the history of its
origin very well." — Gunkel.
"God, in creating, theomorphises man; man, therefore, necessarily
anthropomorphises God." — Jacobi.

lit

CHAPTER V
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
—II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS : GOD AND HIS
WORSHIP.
It will be evident from the preceding discussions that the
real leverage of the newer criticism is found in its theory
of the religious development in ancient Israel: to this
subject, therefore, special attention must now be given. It
is not disputed that difficult problems have to be faced on
any theory of the Israelitish religion and institutions.
Questions exceedingly hard of solution arise in regard to
laws, institutions, and practice, and it is the service of
criticism to have set these in the clearest light. We are
far from persuaded, however, that the methods which have
come into vogue with the radical school hold out the promise
of a satisfactory solution of these difficulties. On the con
trary, these methods seem to us eaten through with an
arbitrary subjectivism which vitiates their application at
every point. Stade and Budde are conspicuous examples
of this fault ; but few of the other best-known writers of
the school are far behind in their wilful setting aside, or
mutilation, of the Biblical accounts, and substitution for these
of an imaginary history, built up from ingenious conjectures,
and brilliant combinations on the line of what the critic
thinks the history should have been.
I. Fault of the Ceitical Method
It may be useful, before entering on the main discussion,
to offer one or two examples of what we regard as the
radical vice of the newer critical method — its continual
substitution of arbitrary conjecture for the facts of the
history as given.

120 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
We take the following from Budde, who prides himself —
be it said — on his respect for the history.1 After propoundmg
the extraordinary thesis that " the tradition claims that it
vr&sjiot Israel's own God who performed these great deeds"
at the Exodus, "but a God up to that time completely
unknown to the Israehtes, whose name even they then
learned for the first time " 2 (the statement that the fore
fathers had known Yahweh is a later " palliating addition "),3
he proceeds to explain how this God became transformed
into the Yahweh of a later period by the absorption of
" other gods " into Himself. " Yahweh had not expelled or
annihilated them (the Canaanitish gods), but had made them
subject ; He had divested them of their personality by
absorbing them into His own person." 4 Then, with charm
ing frankness : "To be sure, neither the law, nor the historical
narratives, nor the prophets, say a word of all this, yet it can
be proved," etc.6 Nearly anything, we imagine, could be
proved in the same manner. .
Budde's respect for the history does not allow of his
agreeing with those who, "while relinquishing everything
else, have tried to save the Ten Commandments, the ' Mosaic '
moral law, for these oldest times." For, " the Ten Command
ments base all their demands on the nature of the God of
Israel. If, then, they really did come from this period " —
we may ask the reader to note what, in Budde's view, is
involved in the acceptance even of the Decalogue — "it
appears that there existed, even in the earliest times, a
conception of God so sublime that hardly anything could
have remained for the prophets to do. This of itself should
suffice to show the impossibility of the Mosaic origin of the
Ten Commandments." Then, with the same engaging
frankness: "It is, therefore, in the highest degree im
probable that Yahweh demanded at Sinai the exclusive
veneration of His own Godhead. True, this is the unvarying
testimony of Old Testament tradition. It is to this day the
generally accepted view, and is held even by advanced
specialists. But it can hardly be maintained," etc.8
1,1 Thus treated," he says, "the Biblical tradition, even of the oldest
times, has proved itself to me to be, in its main features, trustworthy —
I speak of the history of Israel as a nation, not of the stories of primeval and
patriarchal times in Genesis." — Rel. of Israel, p. 3.
a Ibid. p. 14. 8 Ibid. p. 15. 4 Ibid. p. 41.
6 Ibid, (italics are ours). * Rid. p. 59.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 121
We quote these passages because they are typical.
Delitzsch has said : " If history is critically annihilated,
what is left but to fill the tabula rasa with myths?"1
This we take, as said, to be the primary vice of the prevail
ing theory — either, the arbitrary setting aside of the Biblical
narrative in favour of some novel, no doubt highly ingenious,
construction of the critic's own ; or, the persistent reading
into the history, in the interest of some fancy, of a meaning
which it cannot be made to bear. A main difficulty, in fact,
in the discussion, is, that, in the multitude of hypotheses,
and unbounded liberty claimed by the critic to accept or
reject as suits his convenience, it is impossible ever to feel
that one has a sure hold on anything. The critic should at
least, one would think, abide by his own assumptions ; but
he is far from doing so. How constantly, for instance, are
Jephthah's words in Judg. xi. 24,2 relied on in proof that,
in the time of the Judges, Jehovah sustained the same
relation to Israel as Chemosh did to Moab. Yet this section
is declared by the critics not to belong to the older stratum
of the Book ol Judges, but to be a late insertion of uncertain
date : s certainly, therefore, on the theory, no real speech of
Jephthah's. Wellhausen cites it,4 yet, as Dr. A. B. Davidson
points out, " elsewhere regards the whole passage, with the
allusion to Chemosh, as a later interpolation founded on
Num. xxi. 29." 6 Similarly, the statement of David in 1 Sam.
xxvi. 19, that his enemies had driven him out of Jehovah's
inheritance, saying, " Go, serve other gods " — continually
quoted in proof that to David Jehovah was only a tribal
god 6 — is, with the chapter to which it belongs, assigned by
Kautzsch, with others, to a comparatively late date : 7 is
valueless, therefore, as a testimony to David's own sentiments.
Is it desired, again, to prove an original connection between
Jehovah and Moloch? Kuenen, to that end, accepts as
" historical " the statement in Amos v. 26 that the Israelites
carried about in the desert "the tabernacle of Moloch,"8
1 Genesis, i. p. 9. a See below, p. 181.
8 Thus Kautzsch, Moore (Judges), Thatcher (Judges, "Cent. Bible"),
etc. 4 Hist, of Israel, p. 235.
B Expositor, 3rd Series, v. p. 49. "This pet passage," Dr. Davidson
says, "figures of course in Wellhausen, as it does everywhere else since
Vatke." He refers to Wellhausen's Bleek, p. 195.
« See below, p. 132. ' Lit. of 0. T., pp. 45, 237.
lRel. of Israel, i. p. 250.

122 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
though the whole history of the wanderings, which, in its
JE parts, is allowed to be older than Amos, is rejected by
him. A proof of the bull-worship of Jehovah from ancient
times is found by some in the story of the making of the
golden calf in Ex. xxxii. ; yet the story is rejected as un
historical.1 Others take it as a protest against bull- worship : 2
Kuenen, as will be seen below, thinks it glances at the fact
that the idolatrous priests of the Northern Kingdom claimed
descent from Aaron.3
To take only one other example, Professor W. R. Smith
writes thus of the sacred pillars of the patriarchs : " In the
Biblical story they appear simply as memorial pillars, without
any definite ritual significance." This, however, he goes on,
" is due to the fact that the narratives are conformed to the
standpoint of the law and of the later prophets, who look on
the ritual use of sacred pillars as idolatrous." 4 The critic
forgets, or ignores, that, on his own showing, these patriarchal
stories anteceded the age of written prophecy, and that,
according to him, in the days of Amos and Hosea, pillars
were still thought to be legitimate.6 Where then is the
place for the conforming of the narratives to the ideas of
"later prophets"? With the talisrnanic power which
such instances exemplify of getting rid of unwelcome facts,
and making a theory prove itself by employing it as a means
to break down opposing testimony, it is not difficult for
criticism to produce astonishing results.
Accepting for ourselves the historicity of the Biblical
narratives, till at least their title to our confidence is
disproved, we propose to invert the procedure of the
schools, and, instead of sacrificing the history to a priori
considerations, to inquire at every point whether reason
is shown for setting it aside.
1 Most writers see some connection with the bull-worship, e.g., Stade,
Geschichte, i. pp. 466-67. Addis dates the narrative later than the fall
of Samaria (722 B.o.) on the ground that only then "the old worship of
Yahweh under the form of a calf, long maintained by kings and Levitical
priests (Judg. xviii. 30), received its death-blow." — Hex. i. pp. 151-52. On
this see below, pp. 143 ff.
2Cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 152.
%Hex. p. 245. See below, p. 211.
*Rel. of Semites, p. 186; O.T. in J. C, pp. 241, 354.
slbid. pp. 186-87 ; Prophets of Israel, p. 116.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 123

II. Early Iseaelitish Monotheism
We begin by contrasting the Biblical and the critical
views of the early Israelitish conceptions of God.
1. It was formerly shown that, in the earliest tradition.
we possess of Israel's beliefs, there is no trace of any con
ception of God but one essentially monotheistic. There
is but one qualification, which, in justice to the facts, it
is necessary to make on this statement. It is not contended
that, at any period of their history, the Israelitish people
as a whole rose to, or Maintained themselves at, the full
height of the monotheistic conception : we know they did
not. To many the conception of Jehovah was no doubt
simply that of their , national god ; nor was it always, or
perhaps even generally, clear, that some kind of inferior
reality did not belong to the gods worshipped with so
much pomp and ardour by the nations around them.1 Even
in apostolic and sub-apostolic times, Christian believers
and Church fathers did not regard the idol-gods of the
Gentiles as simple nonentities: paganism was to them a
system of demon-worship.2 Still harder would it be for
Israel to rise to the height of the prophetic conception
that the idols were " nothings " (elilim),8 in a world where
every people was polytheistic but themselves. But that
the religion of Abraham, and Moses, and the other great
leaders of the nation was at heart the worship of the one
true God, recognised by them to be the Creator, Ruler,
and Lord in providence of the whole world, we see not
the smallest reason to doubt. This was the common view,
prior to the advent of the Kuenen-Wellhausen school,
among the critics themselves,4 and, as the passage above
cited from Budde acknowledges, is the view of leading
1 It would be unsafe, however, to infer this from such expressions as,
"Who is like Thee, O Jehovah, among the gods?" (Ex. xv. 11), for such
expressions are found in prophets and psalms where the monotheistic
consciousness is not doubted. See below, p. 438.
3 1 Cor. x. 20, 21 ; cf. Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. 14, 54, 62, etc.
* Cf. Deut. xxxii. 21 ; Lev. xix. 4 ; Isa. ii. 8 ; Ps. xcvi. 4, 5, eto. In
the last passage we read: Jehovah "is to be feared above all gods," but
in ver. 5, " For all the gods of the peoples are nothings."
4 So De Wette, Lengerke, Hitzig, Ewald, Bleek, Dillmann, etc. On the
other hand, the views of Vatke, and of writers like Daumer, Ghillany, etc.,
.met with little countenance. Of. Konig's Hauptprobleme, pp. 7 ff.

124 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Old Testament specialists still.1 It is the view also, we
are persuaded, which answers to the natural reading of
the facts.
The Book of Genesis, originating, it is to be remembered,
as respects at least its JE parts, in the " pre-prophetic " age,
is, as before pointed out,2 throughout a monotheistic book.3
God is the Creator of the world and of man : destroys the
whole human race by a flood; is present and active in
all lands — Babylonia, Mesopotamia, Egypt; works out a
gracious purpose in the lives of men. The difficulty in
Genesis is not its recognition of God as supreme, — that
appears in every part, — but its almost entire ignoring of
what we nevertheless know to be the fact, the existence of
polytheism and idolatry in tribes and nations outside the
patriarchal circle. The God worshipped by the patriarchs
is the only God whose existence, presence, and working
are recognised in it. We read nothing of gods of Canaan
or Egypt. Melchizedek is, like Abraham, a worshipper of
El Elyon — " God Most High," 4 and even Abimelech and
Pharaoh speak generally simply of "God."6 The single
glimpse we get to the contrary is in the " strange gods "
(teraphim) which Jacob's household brought with them
from Mesopotamia, and which Jacob required them to
put away.6 In Exodus and the remaining Pentateuchal
books it is different. There we have a sharp contrast
drawn between Jehovah and "the gods of Egypt";7 the
people are stringently forbidden to worship " other gods " ; 8
1 See above, p. 120 ; and Chap. IV. p. 93. 3 Cf. above, p. 41.
* This is very generally admitted of the Book of Genesis as we have it.
H. P. Smith, e.g., says of the early part, where anthropomorphism is most
marked : " What J has preserved he was able to bring into harmony
with the strictest monotheism. For the Yahweh of our account, anthro
pomorphic as He is, is yet the Supreme God." — O.T. Hist. p. 16. Cf.
Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 304. Gunkel acknowledges this "mono
theistic trend " of Genesis, and carries it back to an early date. — Genesis,
p. xlvii ; see also his Israel vmd Babylonien, p. 29.
4 Gen. xiv. 18-22. It is not easy to say how far polytheism had
advanced in Canaan in the time of Abraham. The Tel el-Amarna tablets
speak of Baalat of Gebal (frequently), Asherah, Milku (Moloch), Ammon
(? Amon), Samas, Dagon, etc., but do not give much definite light.
•Cf. Gen. xxi. 22 ff. (in chap. xxvi. 27, 28, "Jehovah"); Gen. xii.
39, eto.
6 Gen. xxxi. 19, 30 ; xxxv. 2, 4.
7 Ex. xii. 12 (P) ; xv. 11. It will not be claimed that P, in the former
passage, writes other than monotheistically,
¦ Ex. xx. 3 ; xxiii. 32.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 125
they are enjoined to keep themselves apart from, and to
root out, the idolatry of the Canaanites.1 But Jehovah
is still regarded as exalted above all these other gods in
nature, dignity, and power, as the God of the whole earth
— its Creator, Ruler, and Lord. He is the One who says
of Himself, " All the earth is Mine." 2 Budde, we have seen,
acknowledges that this is the view of God involved in the
Decalogue. While, therefore, Kuenen is right when he
sums up Israel's religion in the formula, " Yahweh Israel's
God and Israel Yahweh's people," 8 this does not in the
least imply that Jehovah was simply to Israel a tribal or
national god. He was the God of their fathers — the God
of heaven and earth * — who of His condescending love had
chosen them to be a people for Himself, with a view to
the ultimate larger blessing of mankind. The keynote
in these early books is precisely the same as in Amos —
the alleged introducer of the " ethical monotheism " :
" You only have I known of all the families of the
earth."5 What is here said of early monotheism is not contra-,
dieted by the anthropomorphisms attributed peculiarly to
the J writer in the Genesis narratives. The anthro
pomorphisms are naive and popular enough ; 6 yet, beneath
* them, the conception of Jehovah as the Creator and Ruler
of the world is never lost sight of ; 7 and the sublimity of
the representations of God in other parts of the J narrative
— in the revelation of God's name, e.g., in Ex. xxxiii. 18, 19,
xxxiv. 5-8 8 — shows clearly that no such paltry ideas of
God as the critics ascribe to this writer were really his.
The anthropomorphisms belong either to the older tradition
the writer is dealing with, or to a vivid and personalising
way of setting forth God's presence and interest in human
1 Ex. xxiii. 24 ; cf. Deut. xii. 2 ff. 3 Ex. xix. 5.
» Nat. and Univ. Religions (Hibbert Lectures), p. 105.
4 Cf. Gen. xxiv. 3,. etc. 6 Amos iii. 2.
* "Jehovah forms men and beasts, breathes the breath of life into
man's nostrils, builds a rib into a woman, plants a garden, takes a man and
puts him into it, brings the beasts to the man, walks in the cool of the day,
speaks (Gen. iii. 22) as though He were jealous "of the man " (Knobel, in
Dillmann). . .
7 Cf. the narrative of the flood, the representations ofGodinGen. xvm. 25,
xxiv. 8. See H. P. Smith, quoted above.
8 On the sole ground of this loftier character these passages are treated
by certain critics as later insertions.— Cf. Oxf. Hex. ii. p. 134.

126 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
things,1 such as is found in prophets and psalmists to the
latest time.
2. Entirely different from this is the early Israelitish
conception of God imagined by the new critical school. The
guiding idea here is no longer " revelation," but " evolution."
Man's oldest ideas of God being supposed to be his poorest,
an original monotheism in this people is decisively rejected.
"At first," says Kuenen, "the religion of Israel was poly
theism." 2 " Monotheism," says Wellhausen, " was unknown
to ancient Israel."3 "The knowledge that there is a
supreme spiritual Being, alone of His kind, Creator and
Preserver of all things, is perfectly lacking to ancient
Israel," is the first sentence in Stade's chapter on pre-
prophetic religion in Israel.4 If we ask what conception
is to take the place of that which is discarded, we have first
the general answer that "the relation in which Yahweh
stands to Israel is the same as, for instance, that of Chemosh
to the Moabites."6 Beyond this, we are offered a wide
choice of theories. Kautzsch, e.g., can find nothing in the
religion of pFe-Mosaic Israel but a species of " polydemonism."
" It is only in a very restricted sense," he thinks, " that we
can speak of such a notion [as God] at all." 6 A connection
is sought by Kuenen between Jehovah and Moloch, the
fire-god, who was worshipped with human sacrifices.7 A »
favourite theory at present, revived by Budde, is that
Yahweh was originally the storm-god of Sinai, worshipped
by the Kenites, from whom Moses borrowed the name and
cult.8 With these theories are blended by Stade and others
1Cf. Dr. A. B. Davidson, art. "God" in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 198:
"The language only testifies to the warmth and intensity of feeling of the
writers"; Theol. of O.T., pp. 108-9. Gunkel remarks: "Li the Old
Testament there are occasionally strong anthropomorphisms ; but they are
not so gross as is usual in Babylonia ; Israel never said that Jehovah eats
and drinks. Such anthropomorphisms are, in the Old Testament, archaisms,"
etc. — Is. und Bab. p. 32.
3 Rel. of Israel, i. p. 223. He deduces this from the later practice of idolatry.
' Isr. vmd Jud. Geschichte (1897), p. 30. 4 Geschichte, i. p. 428.
8 Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, p. 224 ; so Wellhausen, Stade, Budde, W. E.
Smith, eto.
8 Art. " Eel. of Israel " in Diet, of Bible (Extra), p. 623. Kautzsch severs
himself from naturalistic theories when he comes to Moses. His idea of
God, he thinks, can only have come from special revelation (p. 625). But it
was not yet a monotheism : only a "monolatry."
7 Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 226-28, 240, etc. On the similar theory of
Daumer, etc., cf. Konig, Hauptprobleme, pp. 7 ff.
8 The Kenite theory, on which see below, pp. 129 ff. , is advocated by Budde,

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 127
a number of other elements drawn from fetishism, animism,
ancestor- worship, totemism, etc. — of which more again.
What are some of the grounds of these allegations, and of
the rejection of the Biblical view ?
^ (1) First, and perhaps deepest, of the reasons for this
rejection is the a priori one, that such a conception of God
as the Old Testament attributes to the patriarchs and to
Moses was impossible for them at that stage of the history.
It is too elevated and spiritual for their minds to have
entertained. The idea of the unity of God has for its
correlates the ideas of the world and of humanity, and
neither of these ideas, it is asserted, was possessed by ancient
Israel.1 The idea of the world did not arise till the time
of Amos, when it was introduced through the Assyrian
invasions. These "introduced," says Wellhausen, "a new
factor, the conception of the world — the world, of course,
in the historical sense of that expression. In presence of
that conception, .the petty nationalities lost their centre of
gravity, brute force dispelled their illusions, they flung their
gods to the moles and to the bats."2 Thus arose the
universalism of the prophets: thus was brought about
the transformation of Yahweh-worship from monolatry to
monotheism. This seems to us most singular reasoning; is, indeed,
throughout, both as to the idea of the world, and the
impossibility of framing a spiritual conception of God,
again a huge petitio principii. Here is a people whose own
traditions, with the best warrant, went back to Babylonia
and Mesopotamia ; who had lived for centuries in Egypt in
the most brilliant period of its civilisation ; a people of the
age of the Tel el-Amarna tablets; who entered Canaan
when it stood in connection with, and was the highway of,
Tiele, Stade, Cheyne, etc. It was favoured by Colenso, and some older
writers. It is one of the conceits of Budde that originally the Israelites
traced their descent to Cain ! Cf. Delitzsch, Genesis, i. p. 192.
1 Thus Stade, Kuenen, Wellhausen, etc. On the creation of the world,
Wellhausen declares that " in a youthful people such a theological abstraction
is unheard of, and so with the Hebrews we find both the word and the notion
only coming into use after the Babylonian exile." — Hist, of Israel, p. 305.
" The religious notion of humanity underlying Gen. ix. 6 is not ancient with
the Hebrews any more than with other nations." — Ibid. p. 312.
a Lbid. p. 473. Wellhausen fails to show what other nations flung their
gods to the moles and the bats as the result of the Assyrian conquests, or
even that Israel did so as the result of these conquests, or till after the exile.

128 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
all the great empires of the world ; who knew something of
the vast power of the Hittites in the north ; yet we are
asked to believe that it had no conception of the world, or
of anything larger than a petty state, till the days of Amos !
The JE parts of the " table of nations " alone, in Gen. x.,
cry out against such a notion. As to the spirituality of
God, how can it well be maintained, in view of the exalted
conceptions of God now proved to have existed in both
the Babylonian and the Egyptian religions in periods long
anterior to Abraham and Moses,1 that such conceptions
were beyond the grasp of the greater spirits in these times ?
The Code of Hammurabi, in the simplicity and elevation of
its idea of " God," as the One in whose name, or before
whom, oaths were to be taken,2 is a singular example of
what thoughtful minds were capable of in the age of
Abraham. In the Mosaic religion itself we have the
powerful witness of the Decalogue. We agree with Budde
in his testimony to the spirituality of the conception of
God involved in the Ten Words,8 but we do not, on that
account, in face of the strongest historical improbabilities,
deny these precepts to Moses. The First Commandment,
indeed, " Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," might
be interpreted in the sense of monolatry,4 not of monotheism ;
but, in its actual setting, the obvious meaning of the precept
is, that Jehovah alone is to be worshipped, because He alone
is the living and true God.6
1 On the pronounced monotheistic elements in the oldest Egyptian texts,
of. Benouf, Hibbert Lectures, 1879, pp. 89 ff. See also Note A, below.
3 The formula in the Code is simply, " shall swear in the name of God,"
"shall recount before God," or the like. The language is nearly identical
with that of the Book of Genesis. The difference is, that with this high
conception of divinity, the Babylonians worshipped many special gods, while
the Hebrews were forbidden to worship any but Jehovah. See Koto A on
Early Ideas of God.
• Wellhausen also speaks of ' ' the actual monotheism which is undoubtedly
presupposed in the universal precepts of the Decalogue." — Hist, of Israel,
p. 440. We have thus the alternative of denying the Decalogue to Moses,
or of admitting that a monotheistio conception of God lay at the foundation
of the religion of Israel. See below, pp. 152 ff. Even Kuenen admits that, in
its fundamental form, the Decalogue is Mosaic.
4 Thus Kuenen, Kautzsch, etc. The theory on which this rests, viz.,
that "monolatry," or the worship of one sole (tribal) god, was the rule
among surrounding peoples is open to the gravest doubts. Cf. Dr. A. B.
Davidson, art. "God," in Diet, of Bible.
8 "'. Dr. A. B. Davidson on this precept in Expositor, 3rd Series, t.
p. 44.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 129
(2) The modern theory may be usefully tested by
reference to its most prevalent recent form — the alleged
Kenite origin of the Yahweh cult. The theory, in essence,
is, as above stated, that Yahweh, whose name and worship
Moses introduced into Israel, was originally the storm-god
of the Kenites, believed by them to have his local seat on
Mount Sinai. A connection is thought to be established by
the facts that Moses was living among the Kenites, with
Jethro, when Yahweh was revealed to him ; that the abode
of Yahweh is placed at Sinai ; and that His presence there
is associated with thunder, lightning, and storm. The
classical passage in proof is Deborah's Song,1 in which,
according to Wellhausen, Yahweh is "summoned to come
from Sinai to succour His oppressed people, and to place
Himself at the head of His warriors." 2 Budde, it was seen,
draws the conclusion that Yahweh was a God absolutely
unknown to the Hebrews before the Exodus, and explains
His intimate association with Canaan by the notion that He
" absorbed " the Canaanitish deities into Himself !
The far-fetched and arbitrary character of this theory,
which Budde allows to be contradictory of the uniform
tradition of the Old Testament, can be judged of by the
most ordinary reader. Not only does it lack real evidence,
but it is directly in the teeth of the fact that the Jehovah
who appeared to Moses is expressly identified in the oldest
sources with the God of the fathers, and His interposition
is represented as in fulfilment of His covenant promises to
them.3 This is independent of any theory we may form as
to whether the sacred name was known earlier or not. In
point of fact many of the critics now hold that it was
known, if only in limited circles.4 On the other hand,
there is not the least proof, as Kittel points out, that
Yahweh was the name of a Kenite deity.6 When Moses,
later, invited Hobab the Kenite, his brother-in-law, to come
with the Israelites, it was that they might do him good,
" for Jehovah hath spoken good concerning Israel," not that
he, as an earlier worshipper of Yahweh, might do them
good.8 It is but a precarious hold which the theory finds
1 Judg. v. 2 Hist, of Israel, p. 344.
8 Ex. ii. 23-25, iii. 13-16, etc.
4 See Note B on the Antiquity of the Name Jehovah. Many now trace it
as far back as Babylonia. See below, p. 409.
8 Hist. ofHebs. i. p. 250. ° Num. x. 29.

130 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
in the Song of Deborah, especially when it is remembered
that by the time of the Judges Jehovah's presence is beyond
all question presupposed as in the midst of His people in
Canaan.1 How then should He require to be " summoned "
from Sinai ? 2 The bold, figurative language in the opening
of the Song is most easily understood as a reminiscence of
the manifestations of Jehovah's presence and power in the
desert and at Mount Sinai, viewed as a pledge of present
help.8 Stade has himself no little difficulty in maintaining his
theory of a local and limited deity, whose seat was at Sinai.
Yahweh, he allows, was " everywhere " present to His
worshippers in Canaan, and could be worshipped " every
where."4 His presence and help are not confined to His
own land : He accompanies His worshippers into foreign
lands, and there guards and defends them. Thus He
promises to Jacob at Bethel to be everywhere with him:
He is with Joseph in Egypt, goes with Jacob down to
Egypt, works miracles for Elijah at Zarephath, etc. He
knows Sarah's thoughts ; it is declared of Him that nothing
is too hard for Him ; He can help by many or by few ; He
destroys wicked cities ; visits lands like Egypt with famine ;
and otherwise displays His universal might.6 Stade speaks
of these things as indications of a tendency to "break
through" the old notion of God;6 they are in reality a
disproof of his theory of that notion. The Song of Deborah
itself, rightly regarded, is evidence of a far higher conception
of Jehovah in the time of the Judges than the modern
theory will allow. How sublime the picturing of the
majesty and omnipotence of God in the opening theophany ;
how irreconcilable with the idea of a local deity the resist-
1 The whole book is evidence ; but cf. Judg. i. 19, 22 ; or chap. xi. 11 :
" Jephthah uttered all his words before Jehovah in Mizpeh " ; or the presence
of the ark of Jehovah at Bethel and Shiloh.
a"The truth is," says Professor Bobertson, "the Song says not a word
about Jehovah being ' summoned ' from Sinai on the occasion of the battle
referred to."— Early Rel. p. 193.
8 Cf. for parallels, Deut. xxxiii. 2 ; Hab. iii. 3 ff. ; Pss. xviii. 7 ff., lxviii.
7 ff., etc. Kuenen himself says : "Of course, we do not deny that the pious
among the Israelites, in using these expressions, were aware that they spoke
in metaphors." — Rel. of Israel, i. p. 241.
4 Geschichte, i. p. 446.
8 Ibid. i. pp. 430-32. Cf. the references, Gen. xviii. 14 ; xxviii. 15 ff. ;
1 Sam. xiv. 6 ; 2 Kings v. 15 ff., etc.
6 Ibid. p. 430.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 131
less presence of Jehovah in Seir, at Sinai, in Canaan;1
how manifest the supremacy of this God in nature and
providence, when even "the stars in their courses" fight
against His enemies ; 2 how distinct the assertion of Jehovah's
righteousness ; 8 how lofty and spiritual the closing strain —
suggestive of the Second Commandment and of Deuteronomy
— " Let them that love Him be as the sun when he goeth.
forth in his might ! " 4 The theory as a whole thus fails of
evidence, and we are not surprised that critics like Konig,
Kittel, Kautzsch, Dr. A. B. Davidson,6 and others reject it.
The fact that Horeb is already spoken of in Ex. iii. 1 as
" the mountain of God " is a very fragile buttress : the ex
pression is probably used proleptically.
(3) We come back, then, in support of the theory that
Jehovah was a "tribal" (or merely national) god to the
two passages which, from their perpetual recurrence, may,
without offence, be called the stock proofs of that hypothesis,
viz., the words of Jephthah in Judg. xi. 24, and those of
David in 1 Sam. xxvi. 19. But, impartially examined,
what do these passages amount to ? Jephthah says to the
king of the Ammonites : " Wilt thou not possess that which
Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever
Jehovah our God hath dispossessed from before us, them
will we possess." Even accepting the interpretation put
upon the words, one may reasonably demur to the erecting
of the utterance of this rude Gileadite chieftain, in a time
of religious disorganisation, into a standard for the true
idea of God in the Mosaic religion. That must be judged
of on its own ampler evidence, apart from a passage hkc
this. But even on the lips of Jephthah, rude soldier though
he is, it is by no means clear that the words are intended
as more than a form of speech in accommodation to the
1 Judg. v. 4, 5.
3 Ver. 20. " In the Song," says Dr. A. B. Davidson, "we observe Him
regarded as ruling in heaven and on earth, commanding the stars in their
courses, and the rivers as they flow." — O.T. Prophecy, p. 38.
8 Ver. 11. In Budde's view, the Yahweh of Moses had not even moral
character (Rel. of Israel, p. 30).
4 Ver. 31. Dr. Davidson says here : "Had we a few more poems by
prophetic minds such as this, and not the external histories of rude soldiers,
such as unfortunately we possess alone [But see below, pp. 143, 384], we
should, I believe, be able to form a higher idea even of the religious condition
of the people under the Judges." — Ibid. pp. 37-38.
8 Kautzsch speaks of it with respect, but does not accept it. — "EeL of
Israel," Diet. p. 62 ; cf. Davidson, Theol. of O.T., pp. 50-52.

132 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Ammonite point of view. The section seems based, as
before said, on Num. xxi. 22 ff., where, it might be shown,
a sufficiently high idea of God is implied. Jehovah, in any
case, is obviously far more to Israel than Chemosh is to
Ammon ; is even, in ver. 27, invoked as " the Judge " to
judge between them.1 The second passage, in which David
says, " They have driven me out this day that I should not
cleave unto (or, have no share in) the inheritance of
Jehovah, saying, Go, serve other gods," has, to our mind,
even less probative force. Wellhausen entirely misrepre
sents its import when he speaks" of David as " compelled to
serve other gods," 2 and Professor W. R. Smith not less when
he says that David takes it for granted that a man who is
excluded from the commonwealth of Israel " must go and
serve other gods." 8 One desiderates here some more exact
thinking. Does anyone — even Wellhausen — really suppose
that when David crossed into Philistia he ceased to worship
Jehovah, and served Dagon instead? or that Naomi
worshipped Chemosh in Moab ? or that Elijah served Baal
at Zarephath ? What, on this theory, would be the meaning
of Naaman's apology for " bowing down " in the house of
Rimmon ? 4 We have learned from Stade himself, what all
the history teaches, that Jehovah accompanied His servants
in their wanderings : how could David imagine it would be
otherwise with him? Taking the passage most literally,
David is not speaking for himself, but declaring what others
say ; and he uses this bold mode of speech to emphasise his
sense of the deprivation implied in being banished from
Jehovah's immediate presence, and driven into a land where
other gods are worshipped. The fact that precisely the
same expression occurs twice in an undoubtedly mono
theistic book like Deuteronomy should warn us against
attaching too much weight to its presence here.5
1 We may quote Dr. A. B. Davidson again : " The truth is that such
references to Chemosh and other heathen gods prove nothing, because they
would prove that even Jeremiah regarded Chemosh as a real divinity (Jer.
xlviii. 7)." — Expositor, 3rd Series, v. p. 49. We may compare our own way
of speaking of heathen gods. Even in the case of a monotheistic religion
like Mohammedanism, we make a distinction between the Christian's God
and Allah. Both are designations of the Supreme Being, yet the concep
tions of God are so different that we hold them apart in thought, and give
them different names.
a Hist, of Israel, p. 22. * Prophets, p. 54. 4 2 Kings v. 18.
8 Deut. xxviii. 36, 64. Wellhausen cites as another proof : " When

to

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 133
We conclude that no good ground has been shown for
the view that " ethical monotheism " was first introduced
by the prophets, beginning with Amos.1 We have found
monotheism already embedded in the narratives in Genesis,
which, in their J and E partsj are, on the critic's own
showing, "pre-prophetic." So far from monotheism being
the creation of the prophets, — with, perhaps, Elijah as
precursor, — these prophets, without exception, found upon,
and presuppose, an older knowledge of the true God. They
bring in no new doctrine, still less dream of the evolution
from a Moloch or a Kenite storm-god, — as much the product
of men's fancies as Chemosh or Dagon, — of the living, holy,
all-powerful, all-gracious Being to whose service the people
were bound by every tie of gratitude, but from whom they
had basely apostatised. They could not have understood
such evolution from an unreality into a reality. They were
in continuity with the past, not innovators upon it.
Dillmann speaks for a large class of scholars when he says,
in decisively rejecting this theory : " No prophet is conscious
of proclaiming for the first time this higher divine
Principle : each reproaches the people for an apostacy from
a much better past and better knowledge: God has a con
troversy with His people." 2
III. Eaely Israelitish Worship
Budde stands nearly alone in denying an ethical element
in the original Mosaic conception of God ; but it is hardly
possible to put lower than most writers of this school do
the ideas entertained by the people in the pre-prophetic age
of the proper mode of representing and worshipping the
deity to whom they had attached themselves. Fetishism,
animism, totemism, image-worship, ancestor-worship, tree-
and stone-worship, human sacrifices, etc., all play their part
Cain is driven out of the land (Canaan), he is driven from the presence of
Jehovah" (Gen. iv. 14, 16). Similarly Stade: "Cain, driven out of
Palestine, and pleading for the alleviation of his punishment, is made to
say," etc. (i. pp. 446-47). Cain, on this view, is supposed to have had his
abode in Palestine. Wonderful is the power of criticism to make the text
say what it pleases — even to the turning of it into nonsense 1
1 Cf. Duhm, quoted above, p. 68.
3 Alttest. Theol. p. 56. Cf. Schultz against Stade in O.T. Theol. i. pp.
123-24. Baethgen maintains that the religion of Israel never was poly
theistic : that its strange gods were imported. — Beitrdge, p. 289.

134 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
here. Most writers are content to explain a religion by the
help of one or two such principles — by fetishism, e.g., or
ancestor-worship, or totemism. It is reserved for Stade,
in his picture of pre-prophetic religion, to blend all these
forms of superstition in one grand m&lange. We shall con
sider this subject under the general head of worship.
The simple elements of patriarchal worship, in the
Biblical view, are prayer and sacrifice. The patriarchs
build their altars, and call on the name of God. After the
Exodus, worship is regulated by the Mosaic constitution.
The fundamental laws of the covenant forbade the worship
of God by images, required the extirpation of idolatry,
denounced witchcraft, and condemned the practices of the
Canaanites generally.1 In the hands of the critics this
picture of Israel's history undergoes a complete transforma
tion. It was seen before that the Biblical history, on the
face of it, does not lend support to the view that tree- and
stone-worship, ancestor-worship, totem-worship, teraphim-
worship, human sacrifices and the like, were prominent
features of the religion of the patriarchs, or of the people
who came out of Egypt with Moses.2 How then is the
theory made out ? In the first place, as before, by rejecting
the history we have, and substituting for it a construction
evolved from a general theory of the origin of religion ; in
the next place, by reading back the disobediences and cor
ruptions of the later history into the original form of the
religion, and fastening on stray passages and incidents an
interpretation contrary to the general impression of the
narrative.8 The method can best be illustrated by observing
it at work.
1. The Book of Genesis gives us a clear and intelligible
account of how places like Bethel, Hebron, Beersheba,
Shechem, came to be regarded with peculiar veneration by
the Israelites. They were places hallowed by the residence
and worship of their fathers, and by the revelations of God.
These stories form part of the patriarchal history, and we
have sought to show that there is no reason for discrediting
them. The newer criticism, however, cannot accept so
1 Ex. xx. 4, 6, 23 ; xxii. 18, 21; xxiii. 24, 32, 33.
3 See above, pp. 39, 40.
8 Kautzsch says he " must emphasise very strongly that in almost every
instance we have here to deal with hypotheses, and not with facts." — " Bel.
of Israel," Diet. p. 613.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 135
simple an explanation. It rejects the history, and assumes
that these places were really old Canaanitish sanctuaries,
which the Israelites adopted on their entrance into Canaan,
and afterwards glorified by weaving around them this web
of patriarchal legend.1 If we ask for proof, none is forth
coming. We are thrown back on assertion, and on the
assumption of the mythical character and non-historicity of
the patriarchal narratives generally.
2. Stade gives the matter a further development. There
were graves at some of these places (Hebron, Machpelah,
Shechem). What is clearer than that the real origin of the
sacredness of these sanctuaries was ancestor - worship ?
" Before the altars at Hebron and Shechem were altars of
Yahweh, sacrifices were offered on them to the ancestral
spirits of Abraham and Joseph, and we have here a proof"
—the reader will note the stringency of Stade's ideas of
proof — "that we are right in our conclusion that the
worship of ancestors was a usage in ancient Israel." 2 The
tribal _ system is thought to be connected with ancestor-
worship,8 and additional proofs are found in mourning
justoms.4 Other writers amplify the suggestion. "The
teraphim," Budde thinks, " belong to the extensive domain
Df ancestor-worship, which, in many lands and continents,
even in the New World, has formed the oldest verifiable
foundation of religion."5 The yearly sacrifice of David's
family in Bethlehem may be presumed to have been
originally offered "to a deified eponymous hero."6 The
rule is a simple one — wherever you find mention of burial-
places, be sure you are on the track of worship of ancestors.7
Addis finds Jacob in Gen. xxxv. 14 " pouring out a libation
1 Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 18, 30, 325, etc. ; Budde, Rel. of
Israel, p. 107, etc. E.g., Jacob's vow at Bethel is supposed to be meant
as a sanction of the payment of tithes to the priests of the calf-worship at
that place.
3 Geschichte, i. pp. 451-52. » Ibid. p. 452.
* Mourning customs are supposed to have their rationale in the attempt,
as Kautzsch says, "to render oneself unrecognisable by the spirit of the
dead, and thus to escape its malign influence." — "Eel. of Israel," Diet.
pp. 614-15. Kautzsch criticises the theory, and concludes that if ancestor-
worship ever prevailed in the pre-Mosaic period, no consciousness of it sur
vived to historical times.
8 Rel. of Israel, p. 64. Max Miiller subjects the theory of ancestor-
worship to a historical examination in his Anthropological Religion (Lect. V. ),
and rejects it as based on totally mistaken data.
« Ibid. to. 65. 7 Ibid.

136 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
to the soul of the dead." x And these things, in all serious
ness, are regarded as " scientific " treatment of the history.
3. Was animism, or belief in a spiritual presence in
natural objects, a feature of the rehgion of ancient Israel ?
These writers have no doubt of it. Primitive peoples are
accustomed to connect the presence of the deity with wells
and trees.2 Now there are " wells " mentioned in Genesis,
at Beersheba and elsewhere.8 It is true that there is no
hint in the patriarchal narratives that the wells were valued
for anything but the supply of water they yielded. But
this is no obstacle to the belief that originally the wells
were thought of as dwelt in by spirits, and that this was
the real ground of the reverence paid to them.4 So trees
were wont to be regarded as manifestations of a divine life.
And the patriarchs were fond of the shade of spreading
trees, built altars near them,6 sometimes even planted them.
Abraham dwelt by the " oaks " or " terebinths " of Mamre ; 6
he planted a tamarisk at Beersheba; Deborah, Rebekah's
nurse, was buried under " the oak " at Bethel, which thence
forth was called " Allon-bacuth " — "the oak of weeping."7
" The famous holy tree near Shechem," says Professor W. R.
Smith, "called 'the tree of soothsayers,' in Judg. ix. 37,
and ' the tree of the revealer ' in Gen. xii. 6, must have been
the seat of a Canaanite oracle." 8 Possibly ; though there is
in the statement the full measure of assumption usual in
such matters.9 But there is nothing to connect the
patriarchs with these superstitions, or to indicate that they
thought of a god as dwelling in these trees. The Canaanite
1 Hex. ii. p. 226. Addis takes this verse from its place, and connects it
with the death of Deborah.
2Cf. W. B. Smith, Rel. of Semites, pp. 151 ff.
8 Gen. xvi. 7; xxi. 25, 30 ff.; xxiv. 16; xxvi. 15, 19 ff., etc
4 Stade, Geschichte, i. p. 456.
8 Gen. xiii. 18.
6 Gen. xiii. 18 ; xiv. 13 ; xviii. 1. The LXX has the singular, "oak."
7 Gen. xxxv. 8. Stade would connect the very names of the trees —
Elah, Elon, Allon — with the divine name El (i. p. 455). "This attempt,"
says Professor A. B. Davidson, "may be safely neglected." — Diet, of Bible,
ii. p. 199.
8 Rel. of Semites, p. 179.
9 "The famous holy oak" has already a touch of such assumption. It
is assumed that the " Moreh " in Gen. xii. 6 is not, like Mamre, a proper
name (cf. Dillmann, in loc), and that the identity of this tree is certain with
the "oak of Meonenim" in Judg. ix. 37. Similarly, "the palm tree"
under which Deborah sat and judged (Judg. iv. 4) is identified with " the
oak " which marked the grave of Rebekah's nurse (Gen. xxxv. 8).

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 137
Asherahs, or tree symbols of Astarte, on the other hand, —
another of the proofs, — were no doubt idolatrous ; but they
were from the first, and all down the history, absolutely
condemned.1 4. The proofs offered of fetishism and of stone-worship in
ancient Israel are equally numerous — and equally incon
clusive. Only allusion need be made here to the ark of
the covenant, which will form a subject of discussion by
itself after.2 The history speaks of an ark, the visible
symbol of the presence of Jehovah among His people,3 in
which were deposited the two tables of the law.4 Jehovah
dwelt, not in, but above the ark, between (or upon) the
cherubim." 6 This, however, in the view of the critics, is a
mistake. Analogies are drawn from other religions to prove
that " the ark of Yahweh " was really a fetish-chest ; and
the tradition that it contained tables of stone is to Stade
the " most convincing " evidence that it had in it two stones in
which Yahweh was believed to dwell.6 The stones were pro
bably " meteorites " — appropriate to the lightning-god.7 " If
the divinity of Sinai resided in a rock," says Professor H. P.
Smith sagely, — " which from Arabian analogies seems very
probable, — it would be natural for the people to secure His
presence by providing such a chest in which to transport
the fetish."8 One feels sometimes that it would require
1 Ex. xxxiv. 13 ; cf. Deut. xvi. 21.
2 Cf. Chap. VI. pp. 161 ff.
8 Num. x. 33 ff.; Josh. iii. 6.
4 Hence the name "ark of the covenant." Cf. Deut. x. 1-6, 1 Kings
viii. 9, with Ex. xxiv. 12 ff., xxv. 21. See below, p. 162.
8 1 Sam. iv. 4 ; 2 Sam. vi. 2. Cf. A. B. Davidson, Theol. ofO.T., p. 112.
Kuenen says of these passages: "We must hold that the author wrote
' the ark of Yahweh,' and ' the ark of God,' nothing more."— Rel. of Israel, i.
p. 259. Apart, however, from the omission of the words "of the cove
nant" in the LXX (Vat. Cod.) of 1 Sam. iv. 3-5, which is not decisive,
the " must " is in his own theory. See below, p. 162.
6 Geschichte, i. pp. 448-49, 457. "This conception," Stade says, "is
what from the standpoint of the history of religion must be called
fetishistic" (p. 448).
7 Ibid. p. 458 ; cf. Kuenen, i. p. 233. Kautzsch adopts the "meteorite '
theory.— " Bel. of Israel," Diet. p. 629. Bennett says: "According to
early tradition, two sacred stones were preserved in the ark." — Genesis,
p. 282. Tradition, however, says nothing of "two sacred stones," it speaks
only and definitely of the two tables of the law.
8 0. T. History, p. 71. Professor A. B. S. Kennedy, in art. "Ark" in Diet.
of Bible (i. p. 150), dissociates himself from this view, "now generally
adopted," he says, "by Continental writers." On the literature, see
Kautzsch, as above.

138 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
the irony of an Elijah to deal fittingly with such
hypotheses, but we are content to leave them to the reader's
own reflections.
A more direct proof of stone-worship, however, is
thought to be found in the setting up of sacred " pillars "
or maccebas by the patriarchs and others — as by Jacob at
Bethel,1 by Jacob and Laban in Mount Gilead,2 by Joshua
at Shechem,8 by Samuel at Ebenezer,4 etc. It is true that,
as Professor W. R. Smith admits, these pillars or stones are
never represented in the narratives as anything but
memorial pillars;6 but it is insisted that the real idea
underlying them is that God was actually present in the
stone, or at least then took up His abode in it.6 It is
pointed out that, in the case of Jacob, not "the place,"
but the "stone" itself, is called "Bethel," in Gen. xxviii.
22,7 and a connection is sought with the Greek word
PuirvXia., a name for sacred stones.8 But there is not
a vestige of evidence that there was ever a class of sacred
stones in Israel called " Bethels," 9 and it is surely obvious
from the context that the stone is called " Bethel," merely
as marking the site of the place. This ingenious hypothesis,
in short, is simply a reading into the narrative of ideas
which do not necessarily belong to it. " It cannot be
inferred," Dillmann says justly, " from Gen. xxviii. 18, xxxv.
14, 15, xlix. 24, that the patriarchs worshipped holy stones :
the stone of Jacob appears only as a symbol of a place,
and monument of the experience of God's nearness; also
in later times we read nothing of stone-worship among
the people." 10 Neither, we may add, is there the slightest
evidence that the prophets, in their later polemic against
idolatrous maccebas, intended the least disrespect to such
memorial pillars as were set up by Jacob or Joshua. In
1 Gen. xxviii. 18, 22 ; xxxv. 14.
2 Gen. xxxi. 45. Also in vers. 46-49, a heap or cairn.
8 Josh. xxiv. 26, 27.
4 1 Sam. vii. 12. 8 Cf. above, p. 122.
6 Professor W. B. Smith distinguishes such dwelling in stones from fetish
ism proper (Rel. of Semites, p. 189).
7 Ibid. p. 187.
8 Cf. art. " Bethel " in Diet, of Bible, i. p. 218.
9 As Schultz, e.g., would seem to suggest, O.T. Theol. i. p. 207.
10 Alttest. Theol. p. 90. So Konig in art. "Symbol" in Diet, of Bible
(Extra), p. 170: "The macceboth, again, were not set up on their own
aocount. They were not meant to be dwelling-places of the deity, but
were symbols, expressive of gratitude for a divine revelation," etc.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 139
Isa. xix. 19 it is even predicted that "in that day there
shall be an altar of Jehovah in the midst of the land of
Egypt, and a pillar (macceba) at the border thereof to
Jehovah." It is a forced explanation of such a passage
to say that, in Isaiah's time, pillars were not yet regarded
as unlawful.1 Memorial pillars never were so regarded:
"pillars" on the other hand, connected with idolatrous
worship were already condemned in the first legislation,2
— far older, on any showing, than Isaiah.
5. Another form of superstition with which the religion
of Israel is brought into relation is totemism, or belief in
the descent of a tribe from a sacred animal. Professor W. R.
Smith found in this the key to the clan system and
sacrificial customs of the Semites — the Hebrews included.3
Support is sought for the theory in Biblical names— in
the name Caleb, e.g., which means a dog,4 — and Stade
urges such facts as the "horns" of the altar, and the
bull-worship of the Northern Kingdom.6 The theory has
not met with general acceptance, and hardly needs here
fuller discussion.6
6. To the long list of heathenish practices asserted
to belong to the religion of ancient Israel may be added —
human sacrifice. Human sacrifice was a feature of
Moloch-worship : the Israehtes were acquainted" with it ;
in times of religious declension even caused their children
to pass through the fire to Moloch.7 If, then, as Kuenen
thinks, Yahweh was originally connected with Moloch,
1 According to Vatke, Kuenen, Duhm, etc., the abolition of maccebas
was included in the reforms of Hezekiah. Cf. Konig, Hauptprobleme, p. 68.
2 Ex. xxiii. 24 (images =maccebas); cf. Isa. xvii. 7, 8; Mic. v. 13.
Hosea, in chap. iii. 4, seems to group together lawful and unlawful objects.
8 Rel. of Semites, pp. 117 ff., 130, 251 ff., 424 ff. ; Kinship and Marriage,
chap. viii. ; "Animal Worship and Animal Tribes," Jour, cf Philology,
1880. 4 Of. Kinship and Marriage, pp. 218 ff. : "The nomadic populations of
Southern Palestine, which ultimately became incorporated with Judah, also
present animal names, of which the most important is that of the Calebbites,
or dog-tribe" (p. 219).
8 Geschichte, p. 465. Stade mentions (p. 466) that W. B. Smith
supposes the serpent to be the totem of the house of David.
8 See Note C on Professor W. B. Smith's Theory of Sacrifice. Kautzsch
criticises the totem-theory in "Bel. of Israel," Diet. p. 613. If the theory
were as ingeniously applied to British personal (animal) names, symbols
(e.g., John Bull, British Lion), tavern signs (a large class), etc., it would
bring out startling results.
7 Cf. 2 Kings xvi. 3 ; xxi. 6 ; xxiii. 10 ; Jer. xxxii. 35, eto.

140 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
human sacrifice was to be expected in His service.1 If,
on the other hand, this abhorrent idea of the connection of
Jehovah with Moloch is rejected, the chief basis of the
theory is destroyed, and other proofs become of secondary
account. No fair reader of the history of Israel can say
that human sacrifice was at any time a legitimate or
recognised part of the worship of the nation. Proofs
drawn from Abraham's temptation (the moral of which
is that such sacrifices were not desired by Jehovah),2 from
the destruction of the first-born,8 Samuel's hewing of Agag
in pieces before Jehovah,4 the hanging of Saul's seven sons,5
etc., are quite illusory, for none of the last-named cases
answers properly to the idea of sacrifice. If Micah asks :
" Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit
of my body for the sin of my soul?"6 — asks it only to
reject the supposition — this no more proves that human
sacrifice was a usual or recognised part of Jehovah's
rehgion, than Paul's words, "If I give my body to be
burned,"7 prove that surrender to death by fire was a
common form of devotion in the apostolic Church. There
remains the case of Jephthah's sacrifice of his daughter in
fulfilment of his rash vow.8 The circumstances are unusual,
and there is still doubt as to the manner in which Jephthah
fulfilled his vow.9 But, admitting that the maiden was
actually slain as a sacrifice, and not simply devoted, we
may be excused, as before, for not accepting the action of
this very partially enlightened Gileadite, in a rude age,
as a rule for judging of the true character of Israel's
religion. How would it fare with Christianity, if it were
judged by individual instances of misguided zeal, in con
trariety with its own first principles, occurring, say, in the
Middle Ages ? We may safely apply to all human sacrifices
1 Cf. Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 228, 237. Kuenen carries over all the things
condemned by the prophets, including female prostitution, into the worship
of Yahweh (cf. p. 72).
2 Gen. xxii.
8 Ex. xiii. 2, 11-12, etc. The redemption of the first-born is thought
to have its origin in this practice. Cf. Kuenen, i. p. 290.
4 1 Sam. xv. 33.
8 2 Sam. xxi. 1-14. These are Kuenen's own instances (i. p. 287).
• Mic. vi. 7, 8. 7 1 Cor. xiii; 3.
8 Judg. xi. 30, 31, 34-40.
• Cf. Sanday, Inspiration, p. 138 ; and see the full discussion in
Koh^er's Bib. Geschichte, ii. TP- 100-3.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 141
what Jeremiah says of the sacrifices to Moloch : " Which
I commanded them not, neither came it into My mind,
that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah
to sin."1

IV. Image- Worship in Israel
A more important question than any of the above is —
Was image-worship an original or permissible part of
Israel's rehgion ? To most the Second Commandment would
seem decisive on that point; but it is not so to the critics.
The Decalogue is denied to Moses, and a principal reason
for rejecting the precept prohibiting images is precisely
that images are held to have been, in point of fact,
worshipped.2 That there was deplorable defection, and
lapsing into idolatry, in the time of the Judges, and under
the kings, no one, of course, denies; it is the assertion of
the Bible itself, and the constant subject of the denunciation
of the prophets. It is a different matter when it is maintained
that the worship of Jehovah was originally, and all down
the history, by images. The assertions of the critics here
are of the most positive kind. Wellhausen says roundly :
"The prohibition of images was during the older period
quite unknown." 8 Professor H. P. Smith tells us that even
the great prophets "no doubt conceived God as existing
in human form."4 It was not, however, in human form,
but under the image of a bull, that Jehovah is supposed
to have been worshipped from ancient times in Israel.6
The support for this is chiefly drawn from the calf -worship
set up by Jeroboam in Northern Israel, and confirmatory
evidences are sought in the ephod of Gideon,6 the images
1 Jer. xxxii. 35. Another prophetic passage adduced by Kuenen is Hos.
xiii. 2, with the reading, "Sacrificing men, they kiss the calves" (i. p. 75).
Even so, the practice is only mentioned to be condemned. See Note D on
Sacrifice of Children.
3 See above, p. 120 ; and below, p. 153. Cf. Kittel, Hist. ofHebs. i. p. 248.
Cf. Schultz, O.T. Theol. i. p. 210. Professor W. B. Smith says : " Even the
principle of the Second Commandment, that Jehovah is not to be worshipped
by images . . . cannot, in the light of history, be regarded as having so
fundamental a place in the religion of early Israel." — Prophets, p. 63.
8 Hist, of Israel, p. 439.
4 0. T. History, p. 18. Kautzsch also thinks that the idea of Jehovah
as having bodily form continued till the prophetic age. — "Bel. of Israel,"
Dict.V. 637. Cf. Kittel, Hist. ofHebs. i. pp. 248 ff.
8 Thus generally. 6 Judg. viii. 27.

142 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
of Micah,1 the brazen serpent of Moses.2 It is allowed
that there was no image of Jehovah in the temple at
Jerusalem ; 8 but it is urged that there were other visible
symbols,4 and that images were common among the people.5
Nothing, in our view, could be more baseless than this
contention, but it will be well to look at the subject more
closely. 1. We are entitled to say that the oldest periods of the
history afford no confirmation of this theory. The worship
of the patriarchs, in the Book of Genesis, was without
images. The only apparent exception, as before noticed, is
in the " teraphim " of Laban's family.6 What these " tera-
phim " were is obscure. They are probably correctly enough
described by Kuenen as "images which were revered as
household gods, and consulted as to the future."7 They
were at any rate not images of Jehovah, and were put away
by Jacob at Shechem as incompatible with the pure worship
of God.8 In the cases of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, of
Joseph, or, indeed, of any of the patriarchs, image-worship
is not so much as hinted at. " The worship of God in the
house of Abraham," as Dillmann says, "was imageless."9
Baudissin, indeed, would carry back the bull-worship even
to Abraham ; 10 but this is baseless conjecture. Again, in
Mosaic times, and in the Book of Joshua, there is no sugges
tion of a lawful worship of images. The only recorded
instance of image-worship is in the making of the golden
calf at Sinai,11 and this is denounced and punished as a
flagrant transgression, which all but cost the people their
covenant privilege. The prohibitions of image-worship, and
of participation in the idolatry of the Canaanites, are, on the
other hand, absolute. The brazen serpent erected by Moses
was not an image of Jehovah, or an image for worship at
all, though it became at a later time an object of worship
to the Israelites, and was in consequence destroyed by
1 Judg. xvii. 3, 4 ; xviii. 14, 20, etc. 2 Num. xxi. 8, 9.
3 Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 80, 289.
4 The ark is held by Kuenen, Stade, etc., to have been such a symbol.
The two brazen pillars in the temple of Solomon are alleged by Professor
W. B. Smith to have been "doubtless symbols of Jehovah." — Rel. of
Semites, p. 191.
8 Kuenen, as above, p. 80.
8 Gen. xxxi. 19, 30-35. 7 Rel. of Israel, p. 246.
8 Gen. xxxv. 2-4. » Alttest. Theol. p. 90.
18 Cf. Konig, Hauptproblemc, p. 58. u Ex. xxxii.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 143
Hezekiah.1 Neither Moses nor Joshua — none of the
leaders — showed the least tendency to image-worship. The
first notice of idolatrous practices in the wilderness journey
ings is in the prophet Amos — if even there.2
2. When we pass to the Book of Judges, it is different.
We are now in a period expressly signalised as one of
declension and sinful adoption of Canaanitish idolatries.8
But even here we seek in vain in the greater part of the
book for evidence of an image-worship of Jehovah. The sin
for which the people are blamed is much more that of
forsaking Jehovah, and serving "the Baalim and the
Ashtaroth" (Astartes), "the Baalim and the Asheroth"
(sacred trees or poles), of their heathen neighbours, — an
undeniable violation of fundamental law, — than image-
worship of their own God.4 One clear example of the latter
is in the case of the Ephraimite Micah, whose images were
carried off by the Danites.6 The other case usually cited is
that of Gideon, who, after his victory over the Midianites,
made from the spoils a golden " ephod," which, it is declared,
became a "snare" to Gideon and his house.6 On this
mistaken act of a man whose zeal had been conspicuous
against the Baal altars and the Asherahs,7 a whole edifice of
rickety conjecture is built up. It is first assumed that
Gideon's " ephod " was an " image " of Jehovah ; it is next
taken for granted that the image was in the form of a
bull ; 8 lastly, it is concluded that bull- worship, or at least
1 2 Kings xviii. 4. Professor H. P. Smith, who sees in the brazen serpent
a survival of primitive totemism in Israel, has some characteristic remarks on
the subject. See Note E on H. P. Smith on the Brazen Serpent.
3 Amos v. 25, 26. The interpretation of the passage is much disputed.
8 Judg. ii. 11-14.
4 Judg. ii. 11, 13 ; iii. 7; x. 6, etc. It is possible, however, to paint
even this period of backsliding and disorganisation in too dark colours. It
is, e.g., an exaggeration to say with Mr. Thatcher : " There is no conception
of spiritual worship or moral duty in our book." — Judges ("Cent. Bible"),
Introd. p. 33. This is only true if first of all the higher elements (the repent
ances, etc.) are critically eliminated. *The very absence of image-worship in
so large a part of the book is a disproof of the statement. The Song of
Deborah strikes a lofty, and at the end, spiritual note. Cf. above, p. 131 ;
and see the remarks of Konig on this point in art. "Judges," Diet, of Bible,
iii. p. 816 (cf. below, p. 384). Cf. also the Book of Buth.
'Judg. xvii., xviii.
• Judg. viii. 27. 7 Judg. vi. 28-32.
8 Thus even Schultz, 0. T. Theol. i. p. 149 : " The molten image ... is,
aocording to the analogy of other passages (Judg. xviii. 30 ; 1 Kings xii. 28
ff. ; Ex. xxxii. 4) to be thought of as the image of an ox." Cf. Kuenen,
Rel. of Israel, i. p. 236.

144 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
image-worship, was common among the people. It may be
observed that, even if it were true that Gideon made an
image for worship, these sweeping inferences would not be
justified. There would in itself be nothing more wonderful
in this heroic man falhng in his latter days into the sin of
idolatry, than there is in Solomon, in his old age, building
idolatrous shrines for his wives.1 But the inferences are
unwarranted on other grounds. What the text says is, not
that Gideon made an "image," but that he made an
" ephod " 2 — a massive and costly piece of work,8 certainly,
and not designed for actual use, but in some way suggestive
of the high priest and his oracle. There is no indication
that he meant the ephod for worship. Least of all is there
any ground for the assertion that it was an image in the
form of a bull.4 The ephod is expressly declared to have
become a " snare " to Gideon and his house : a condemnatory
statement not to be got rid of by the too easy hypothesis of
interpolation There remains, therefore, as the single prop
of the theory of an image- worship of Jehovah in the time of
the Judges, the case of Micah, who made for himself "a
graven image and a molten image," a sanctuary, " an ephod
(here evidently distinguished from the images) and tera-
phim " : 6 an undisputed instance of idolatry in the worship
of Jehovah. We willingly make a present of this weak-
minded, superstitious Ephraimite, and of the Danites who
stole his images from him, to the critics; but decline to
accept his behaviour as evidence of the fundamental law, or
better religious practice, in Israel It is more to the point
to notice that even Micah does not appear to have had
images till his mother suggested this use of the stolen silver
to him. 3. The stronghold of the case for image-worship, how-
1 1 Kings xi. 4, 5.
2 Kuenen, in a long note in his Rel. of Israel (i. pp. 260 ff.), "decidedly
rejects " the opinion that the ephod was an image ; but in his Hibbert Lectures
he accepts it (p. 82).
8 This is shown by the amount of gold used, about 70 pounds.
4 The idea rests, as the passage from Schultz above cited shows, on the
reading back into the time of the Judges of the calf-worship of Jeroboam. It
bas no basis in the Book of Judges itself. Even so extreme a rationalist as
Dr. Oort contests this idea (of. Kuenen, i. pp. 261-62).
6 Judg. xvii. 3-6 ; xviii. 14, 20. Budde says of Micah's ephod, which
he takes to be "a silver, oracular image," that "unfortunately we do not
know its form." — Rel. of Israel, p. 80. See Note F on Dillmann on Image-
Worship,

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 145
ever, is in the two calves of gold which Jeroboam set up at
Bethel and Dan, after the division of the kingdom. It is
true that no hint is given that such images were known
before in Israel, unless the words, "Behold thy gods, O
Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt,"' be
an allusion to the golden calf of Ex. xxxii.; but it is
thought unlikely that Jeroboam would set up a symbol
entirely new,1 and it is pointed out — at least alleged — that
no protest was made against the worship of the calves by
prophets like Elijah and Amos.2 The denunciations in the
Books of Kings are regarded as representing a later point of
view. Here, again, the history which we have is thrust
aside and a new history invented which suits the critic's
theory. No ingenuity, however, can give this new theory
the semblance of probability. How strange, if this was an
old and well-known custom in Israel, that absolutely no
trace of it should be discoverable, or that it should need to
be " revived " ! How remarkable that nothing of this bull-
worship should be known in Jerusalem, or in the temple,
the seat of Jehovah's worship,8 in which there was no image,
or, apparently, in Judah generally, where it was universally
regarded as an abomination ! The narrator in the Book of
Kings, who had access to old records, plainly regarded it as
something new. The judgment of the prophets, when we
turn to these, does not differ from that of the Book of
Kings. Hosea, it is generally admitted, is unsparing in his
denunciation of the calves,4 and he was a prophet of
Northern Israel. It is held, however, that his attitude in
this respect is not that of his predecessors. " There is no
feature in Hosea's prophecy," says Professor W. R. Smith,
" which distinguishes him from earlier prophets so sharply
1 A connection is conjecturally sought with the old sanctuary at Dan,
Judg. xviii. 29-31.
2 Thus Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, W. B. Smith, and generally. The
suggestion may be made that Jeroboam got the idea from Egypt, where he
resided from the time of his revolt against Solomon till the accession of
Rehoboam (1 Kings xi. 40 ; xii. 1-3). Kuenen, however, rejects this, and
says : " It is much more reasonable to suppose that the ten tribes who rebelled
against Solomon's exactions, and his leanings towards foreign manners and
customs, introduced a genuinely national and ancient Israelitish worship." —
Rel. of Israel, i. p. 236.
8 Are the "lions, oxen, and cherubim" that supported the " bases " in
the temple (1 Kings vii. 29) thought to be an exception t They were
certainly not objects of worship.
4 Hos. viii. 5, 6 ; xiii. 2.

10

146 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
as his attitude to the golden calves, the local symbols of
Jehovah adored in the Northern sanctuaries. Elijah and
Elisha had no quarrel with the traditional 1 worship of their
nation. Even Amos never speaks in condemnation of the
calves."2 This last sentence is astonishing. To the
ordinary reader Amos and Hosea would seem to speak
with precisely the same voice on the Northern calf -worship
— Amos, if possible, with the greater vehemence of the two.
"When I visit the transgressions of Israel upon him," says this
prophet, " I will also visit the altars of Bethel." 8 " Come to
Bethel," he exclaims, " and transgress." 4 He speaks of those
" that swear by the sin of Samaria, and that swear, As thy
god, 0 Dan, liveth."6 Even Kuenen agrees that Amos
speaks in the same way as Hosea of the calf -worship.6
With greater plausibility it may be maintained that
there is no direct denunciation of the calf-worship by Elijah
and Elisha. The argument from silence, however, is a peculi
arly unsafe one here. In the only episodes in which Elijah is
brought before us, he is engaged in a life-and-death struggle
of another kind — the conflict between Jehovah and Baal
arising from the introduction of the Tyrian Baal-worship
into Samaria by Ahab and JezebeL7 It requires great faith
to believe that a stern and zealous monotheist like Elijah
could have any toleration for the calf -worship, which every
other prophet of that age is represented as denouncing.8
It is a sounder application of the argument from silence
to observe that Elijah is never found as a worshipper in
the neighbourhood of Bethel or Dan, and that he never
drops a word indicative of recognition of that worship.9
When -he speaks despairingly of Jehovah's altars being
thrown down,10 he can hardly have included Bethel and Dan
among their number, for these altars stood, and doubtless
1 The reader will mark thepetitio in the word " traditional." To Professor
Smith also the calf- worship is as old as the days of the Judges (Prophets,
p. 96). 2 Prophets, p. 175.
8 Amos iii. 14. * Amos iv. 4 ; cf. v. 4, 5. |,
8 Amos viii. 14.
8 Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 73-74. Cf. the pungent remarks of Dr. A. B.
Davidson, Bib. Essays, pp. 91, 120-22.
7 1 Kings xvi. 30-34.
8 E.g., Ahijah (1 Kings xiv. 7 ff.) ; the prophet from Judah (chap. xiii.
2) ; Jehu, the son of Hanani (chap. xvi. 1, 2).
* Elisha was mocked at Bethel (2 Kings ii. 23).
10 1 Kings xix. 10.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 147
had their crowds of worshippers. We may suppose that to him
they would be practically in the category of the Baal-altars.
And does his threatening to Ahab, " I will make thine house
like the house of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat," x etc., convey
no allusion to that by which peculiarly Jeroboam "made
Israel to sin " ?
A dispassionate review, therefore, of this long catalogue
of superstitions alleged to belong to pre-prophetic religion
in Israel fails to establish the theory of the critics that any
one of these formed part of the genuine religion of Israel.
They show abundant defection in particular periods from
the pure norm of that religion ; but the evidence is over
whelming that they were foreign to the true genius of the
rehgion, were condemned by its laws and by the prophets,
and at no time received countenance from its great re
presentatives. The ideas on which the rehgion rested — the
unity, holiness, universal providence, and saving purpose of
God — were, as before shown, entirely distinct from those
of other religions. As it is with the idea of God and with
the adjuncts of His worship, so, we shall next see, it is with
the institutions of the religion.
1 1 Kings xxi. 21-2*.

CHAPTER VI
tlbe ©lo Testament as affecteo by erfttcfsm—
IE. "IRelfgfon ano 3nstftuttons : Brft, taber
nacle, prfestbooo, etc.

14*

" I believe that, alongside of the modern representations, which resolve
the founders of the Old Testament religion into flitting shadows that elude
the grasp, and throw overboard the solid mass of the Pentateuchal history,
like unnecessary ballast from a ship, my attempt will still meet with sym
pathy, to find an intelligible meaning in the narrative of the Pentateuch,
and to apprehend the religion of Abraham as the preliminary stage, and the
proclamation of Moses as the foundation, of the Old Testament faith,
thought, and life. The Bible remains : scientific attempts to represent
the Biblical history come and go." — Klostermann.
" It [German criticism] has generally been wanting in flexibility and
moderation. It has insisted upon knowing everything, explaining everything,
precisely determining everything. . . . Hence complicated and obscure
theories, provided with odd corners in which all the details may be sheltered,
and which leave the mind little opening or leisure to observe the tendency
of facts and the general currents of history." — Dakmestetbe (in Ottley).
"In Wellhausen's review of the history, he has much to say of the
gradual rise of feasts from the presentation of first-fruits, and of their
annual observance at neighbourhood sanctuaries, and the growth of larger
sanctuaries towards the close of the period of the Judges. . . . But the whole
thing is spun out of his own brain. It is as purely fictitious as an astro*
nomical map would be of the other side of the moon." — W. H. Green.

IN

CHAPTER VI
THE OLD TESTAMENT AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
— H RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS: ARK, TABER
NACLE, PRIESTHOOD, ETC.
The subject of laws and institutions in Israel is bound up
with so many intricate critical questions as to dates and
succession of codes, that it may seem scarcely possible to
deal with it satisfactorily till the critical questions have
been, at least in some provisional way, disposed of. On the
other hand, it is to be observed that the discussion of laws
and institutions does not wholly depend on the conclusions
reached on such matters, say, as the age of Deuteronomy,
or date of compilation of the Priestly Code ; for, conceivably,
these books, in their present form, might be late, yet the
laws embodied in them might be very old.1 It will be
found, in fact, that the determination of the critical
questions themselves depends in no small measure on the
view we are led to take of the history and nature of the
institutions.2 There is room and need, therefore, for some
preliminary consideration of the latter, so far as this can
be done without begging any question not yet critically
dealt with. I. General Position of Moses as Lawgiver
We may first advert a little further than has yet been
done to the general position assigned to Moses in tradition
as the lawgiver of Israel.8 This is a point on which the
critics can hardly avoid involving themselves in some
inconsistency. On the one hand, it is necessary to exalt
1 This is the position taken up by some critics, as Konig.
2 See Wellhausen above, p. 5.
• See above, Chap. IV. pp. 98-99.
151

152 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
the personality and work of Moses, in order to explain how
it comes about that all the legislation in the Old Testament
is connected with his name ; x on the other hand, it is
necessary to minimise his influence almost to vanishing
point, in order to make it credible that he really gave to
Israel no laws at all — none at least of which we have any
knowledge. It will be recalled how we are told that
" Malachi is the first of the prophets to refer to a Mosaic
code." 2 This line of reasoning, as shown before, is fatuous.
The JE history, put by the oritics as early as the ninth or
eighth century, gives the foremost place to Moses as a law
giver. The Book of the Covenant, older than this history,
and incorporated into it, is expressly ascribed to Moses as
its author. The Book of Deuteronomy, again, whenever
written, is evidence that Israel had but one tradition about
Moses — that he gave and wrote laws for the nation. The
force of this testimony is not in the least satisfied by sup
posing, with Wellhausen, W. R. Smith, and others, that the
repute of Moses rested on such oral decisions as those
referred to in Ex. xviii. 13-16, 26.8 Budde will have
nothing to do with this basing of the legislation of Moses
on these oral toroth of Ex. xviii.,* and there is certainly
something arbitrary in founding on this chapter as more
historically trustworthy than its neighbours. If it is
accepted, one must notice the evidence it yields of a high
organisation of the people at the time of the Exodus.6
What then are the reasons for refusing to Moses such
legislation as the Old Testament ascribes to him ?
1. If anything can be attributed with certainty to Moses,
it surely is the Decalogue, which lies at the foundation of
the whole covenant relation of Jehovah to Israel. Yet even
this, which Delitzsch calls "the most genuine of genuine
'Cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 432 ff., 438 ff. ; Kuenen, Rel.
of Israel, i. pp. 272 ff. The latter says: "The collections of laws were
fearlessly embellished with his name, because it was known that he had laid
the foundations of all legislation " (p. 279). He thinks, indeed, that " this
he could do without writing down a single precept."
2 Carpenter, as above, p. 98. " The prophets of the eighth century,'' says
Professor W. E. Smith, "never speak of a written law of Moses." — O.T. in
J. C, p. 802. To show this, he has to put a non-natural sense on Hos.
viii. 12 (see below, p. 325). But at least the prophets knew of the Book
of the Covenant, professing to be written byMoses.
8 Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 439 ; W. R. Smith, O.T. m J. C, pp.
804, 339.
4 Rel. of Israel, p. 33. " Ex. xviii. 21, 25.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 153
productions," 1 it has of late become almost universally the
fashion to deny to the lawgiver. But on what subjective
and arbitrary grounds ! 2 A main reason, as we have seen,
is the prohibition of images in the Second Commandment 8 —
a subject already discussed.4 Apart from this, and the too
elevated idea of God in the Decalogue as a whole, two
special objections may be noticed : (1) the variation in the
form of the Fourth Commandment in the Deuteronomic
version,6 and (2) the alleged occurrence of a second Deca
logue in Ex. xxxiv. 12-26 — a notion borrowed from Goethe.
The first of these objections comes badly from those who
see in Deuteronomy a free prophetic composition of the
age of Josiah, and, apart from the supposition of an
original shorter form, seems sufficiently met by Delitzsch's
remark that " the Decalogue is there freely rendered in the
flow of hortatory oratory, and not literally reproduced."6
The variation may indeed be regarded as an incidental mark
of genuineness in Deuteronomy, for hardly any other than
the lawgiver would be likely to allow himself this liberty
of change. The second objection derives some colour from
a slight ambiguity or confusion in the language of Ex. xxxiv.
27, 28 ; but cannot overbear the clear connection of ver. 28,
"And He (Jehovah) wrote upon the tables the words of
the covenant, the ten commandments (words)," with ver. 1,
" I will write upon the tables the words which were upon
the first tables, which thou brakest," or the plain intention
of the narrative as a whole. The so-called second Decalogue
of J in Ex. xxxiv. 12-26, is, in fact, pretty much, as scholars
are coming to see, a figment of the critical imagination. It
is only by straining that the section can be made into a
Decalogue at all,7 and, with its mixed precepts, it has no
1 Genesis, i. p. 29. Smend also formerly wrote : " The Decalogue,
whose Mosaic origin no one can doubt." — Stud. u. Krit. 1876, p. 643.
Cf. in defence of the genuineness, Riehm, Einleit. i. p. 166 ; Kittel, Hist, of
Hebs. i. p. 244 ff. (in shorter form).
2 For a summary by Addis, see Note A on Objections to the Decalogue.
Cf. also Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 892-93, 439 ff. ; Smend, Alttest.
Religionsgeschichte, p. 47.
8 "There would be no valid reason,'- says Kautzsch, "for refusing to
attribute to Moses himself a primitive, concise form of the Decalogue, were,
it not for the formidable difficulty presented by the prohibition of the use of
images."— "'Rel. of Israel," Diet. p. 683.
* See above, pp. 141 ff. B Deut. v. 15.
0 Genesis, i. p. 30. ....
7 Scarcely two critics divide the precepts so as to make ten in precisely

1 54 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
suitability for taking the place of the historical "words"
of the tables.1
2. If the Decalogue is allowed to be Mosaic, there is
little reason for denying that the remaining laws ("judg
ments ") of the Book of the Covenant, with which the " ten
words " stand in so close a connection, also proceeded from
Moses in substantially their present form.2 The principal
objection urged to this is that they imply a settled life
and agriculture.8 But, on the one hand, the laws in
question are of a very primitive and simple character,
probably resting on old usage;1 and, on the other, the
people were not the undisciplined horde the critics for
their own purposes would make them out to be.6 They
had long had the experience of orderly and settled life,
and were, moreover, on the point of entering Canaan.
They were organised, and had "statutes of God" and
" laws " given them in the wilderness.6 What more likely
in itself than that Moses, by divine command, should draw
up for them a simple code, suited for present and prospective
needs ? How, indeed, could a people like Israel have been
kept together, or have preserved its distinction from the
Canaanites, without some such body of laws, — moral, civil,
and religious,7 — and this not simply in the form of floating
the same way, and the attempt to do so is now being pretty generally given
up, even by advanced critics. Addis speaks of the division into ten as
" mere guess-work." "Many critics," he says, " (e.g., Wellhausen), adopting
a suggestion of Goethe, have tried to disentangle ten 'words of the
covenant,' answering to the Ten Words or Decalogue of the Elohist. This,
however, is mere guess-work." — Hex. i. p. 157. Carpenter also does not
favour the notion. Kittel says : " It requires the utmost arbitrariness even
to find in it the number ten." — Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 198. Kautzsch rejects
the second Decalogue.
1 Cf. Kittel and Riehm, as above, in reply to Wellhausen.
8 Thus Delitzsch, Genesis, i. p. 81.
8 Thus Wellhausen, Kuenen, Addis, etc. Cf. Riehm in reply, i. pp. 170 ff.
* The Code of Hammurabi presents interesting ancient analogies. See
for details art. in Diet, of Bible (Extra Vol.). One regrets to find Mr.
Johns, in the section on comparison with Hebrew legislation, Writing in
the usual flippant style — "The current opinion of critics does not ascribe
much of the Hebrew law to Moses. So his personality may be set aside "
(p. 608).
5 See above, pp. 79, 104. " Ex. xviii. 16, 21, 25.
7 Wellhausen himself points out that " when the Israelites settled in
Palestine, they found it inhabited by a population superior to themselves
both in numbers and in civilisation," yet "it never had the effect of
making the Israelites Canaanites ; on the contrary, it made the Canaanites
Israelites. Notwithstanding their inferiority, numerical and otherwise,

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 155
oral toroth, but in the shape of definite, authoritative
" statutes and judgments," such as the history, the prophets,
and the psalms, uniformly assume the nation to have
possessed?1 And if this was needed, can we suppose
that a man of Moses' capabilities and prescient mind would
have left the people without it? We have several codes
of laws — "programmes" — which the critics assume to have
arisen at various junctures in the history of the nation.
But, as Dr. Robertson observes, "it is strange indeed that
critical historians should postulate the putting forth of
' legislative programmes ' at various later points in Israel's
history, and should be so unwilling to admit the same for
the time of Moses."2 We seem fully entitled, therefore,
in accordance with the whole tradition of Israel, to look
on Moses as the fountain of both civil and religious institu
tions to his nation, and to consider without prejudice any
statements attributing such institutions to his time. The
question of ritual laws demands separate treatment.
II. The Sacrificial System and Ritual Law
The Book of the Covenant deals mainly with civil
matters, and, except in the law of the altar,8 and the
ordinance about the three feasts,* has no properly religious
enactments. This of itself creates a not unreasonable pre
sumption that such will be found elsewhere. To most it
will appear incredible that, in settling the constitution of
Israel, Moses should not have given the people, among his
other laws, at least some ordinances for religious worship.
The critics, however, hold a directly contrary opinion. Not
content with denying that Moses was the author of any
ritual legislation, they go so far as to maintain that, till
the time of the exile, no sacrificial or other ritual existed
which was even believed to have Mosaic or divine sanction.
The prophets, it is declared, show clearly by their denuncia
tions that they know nothing of such a divinely-ordained
ritual. " Thus it is," says Wellhausen, " that the prophets
they maintained their individuality, and that without the support of any
external organisation. Thus a certain inner unity subsisted long before
it had found any outward political expression : it goes back to the time
of Moses, who is to be regarded as its author." — Hist, of Israel, p. 433.
1 See below, pp. 308, 324. 2 Early Religion of Israel, p. 337.
8 Ex. xx. 24-26. * Ex. xxiii. 14-19.
I

156 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
are able to ask whether then Jehovah has commanded His
people to tax their energies with such exertions : the fact
presupposed being that no such command exists, and that
no one knows anything at all about a ritual torah." x The
idea of a ritual which " goes back to Moses or to Jehovah
Himself " 2 is said to be foreign to them. It first came in
with the Priestly Code, which is so insistent on the Mosaic
origin of lawful sacrifice that it carefully avoids, in the
earlier history, ever ascribing sacrifice to the patriarchs.3
Without at this stage entering into details, which will
more properly come up when discussing the Code itself,
we would make on these representations the following
remarks : —
1. /There is, to put it mildly, some absurdity in the often-
repeated statement that " the Priestly Writer knows nothing
of sacrifice by the servants of God before Moses."* We
might ask — How often is sacrifice mentioned altogether in,
the Book of Genesis ? And in how many instances does
the meagre thread of narrative assigned to the Priestly
Writer admit of the act of sacrifice being introduced ? But
there is a more obvious answer — one of which a good deal
more will be heard as we proceed. The Priestly Writer
knew at least about the patriarchal sacrifices all that the
J and E histories had to tell him ; for he had, on the newer
theory, these histories before him, presupposes and founds
upon them, if he does not actually furnish the frame in
which their narratives are set.6 He cannot, therefore, be
supposed designedly to contradict them on this point of
patriarchal sacrifices.6 It is in truth no part of the theory
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 56 ; cf. the whole section, pp. 52-59. Thus also
Kuenen, Hex. pp. 176-77 ; W. R. Smith, O.T. in J. C, pp. 293-95. "All
this," says Professor Smith, "is so clear that it seems impossible to misunder
stand it. Yet the position of the prophets is not only habitually explained
away by those who are determined at any cost to maintain the traditional
view of the Pentateuch, " etc. We shall see immediately about the " explain
ing away."
3 Hist, of Israel, p. 56. * Ibid.
4 Addis, Hex. p. li. 8 See below, pp. 340, 360.
8 Colenso, in combating Kuenen on this point, says : " Is it credible that
he supposed the patriarchs to have offered no sacrifices at all before the
delivery of the sacrificial laws at Sinai — more especially if he had before him
the sacrifices mentioned in Gen. iv. 8, 4 ; viii. 20, 21 ; xxxi. 54 ; xlvi. 1,
etc. " ; and in another connection : " It seems incredible that a later post-
captivity writer, sitting down (as Kuenen supposes) with the J narrative
before him, and of course known to him, and now venerable by age, should
deliberately contradict it" — Pent. Pt. vi. pp. 126, 139,
I

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 157
of the Priestly Writer that sacrifices began with Moses.
His own legislation gives no hint that up to that time these
were unheard-of. Rather, in such phrases as, " If any man
bring an offering to Jehovah," ... "If his offering be a
burnt offering of the herd,"1 etc., it assumes that such
sacrifices are well-known and customary.
2. As little can it be maintained, with any show of
reason, that, up to the time of the exile, sacrifice in Israel
was simply, as Wellhausen affirms, traditional custom,
without divine sanction, or regulation of the when, the
where, the by whom, the how? The Book of the Covenant
already makes a beginning in regulations about the altar,
and the times and manner of sacrifice — " My sacrifice " ; 8
and the Book of Deuteronomy, "which still occupies the
same standpoint as JE," * has abundance of prescriptions
and regulations about sacrifices — described as "all that I
command you."6 How can it be claimed that Jeremiah,
whose mind is steeped in Deuteronomy — if he had not,
as some of these writers think, to do with its production —
is ignorant of these commands, or means to deny them, in
his impassioned protestations that it was not about burnt
offerings and sacrifices, but about obedience, that God
commanded their fathers, when He brought them out of
Egypt?6 3. The strong language of the prophets in denunciation
of outward ritual? while the ethical side of religion was
neglected, admits of easy explanation : the one explanation
it will not bear, it is safe to say, is that which the critics
put upon it. This for a twofold reason. Probably, first,
not one of these prophets could form the conception of a
rehgion for a nation which had not its' temple, priesthood,
sacrifices, and outward order of worship, or ever dreamt of
the abolition of these things ; and, second, so far from regard
ing sacrifice as not well-pleasing to Jehovah, when the right
spirit was present, there is not one of the greater prophets
who does not include sacrifice in his own picture of the
1 Lev. i. 2, 3, eto. 2 Hist, of Israel, p. 54.
8 Ex. xx. 24, 25 ; xxiii. 18, 19. 4 Wellhausen, as above.
8 Deut. xii. 11, etc.
8 Jer. vii. 22, 24. Professor W. R. Smith nevertheless thinks " it is
impossible to give a flatter contradiction to the traditional theory that the
Levitical system was enacted in the wilderness." — O.T. in J. C, p. 295.
7 Amos iv. 4, 6 ; v. 21, 27 ; Isa. i. 10-15 ; Jer. vii. 22, 23, etc

1 58 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
restored and perfected theocracy.1 It is to be remembered
that it is not sacrifice alone, but prayer, feast-days, Sabbaths,
etc., that the prophets include in their denunciations ; yet
we know the importance they attached to prayer and the
Sabbath in other parts of their writings.2 In many places
and ways, also, we see incidentally their recognition of the
divine sanction of these outward ordinances, which, in other
connections, viz.', when made a substitute for heart-piety
and moral conduct, they condemn. It was in vision of the
temple of Jehovah that Isaiah received his call, and by
the touch of a live coal from the altar that his lips were
purged.3 It is Jehovah's courts — " My courts " — that were
profaned by the people's splendid but unholy worship;*
just as in Hosea it is "the sacrifices of Mine offerings"
which the people turn into "sacrifices of flesh."5 If the
40th Psalm is relegated, as on the critical theory it must
be, to post-exilian times, we read in it also : " Sacrifice and
offering Thou didst not desire . . . burnt offering and sin
offering hast Thou not required." 8 But who misunderstands
these words ?
4. Strange to say, all this, and a great deal more, is, in
the end, admitted by the critics. Their argument means
nothing, if it does not amount to a rejection by the prophets
of a ritual worship of God absolutely. Yet we are told by
Kuenen : " We must not assert that the prophets reject the
cultus unconditionally. On the contrary, they too share
the belief, for instance, that sacrifice is an essential element
of true worship (Isa. lvi. 7 ; Zech. xiv. 16-19 ; Mic. iv. 1 ff. ;
Isa. ii. 1 ff. ; xviii. 7 ; xix. 19 ff., etc. etc.). The context
always shows that what they really protest against is the
idea that it is enough to take part in the cultus," etc.7
Only, it is argued, they did not allow this cultus to be of
Mosaic or divine origin. It is precisely on this point that
the proof fails. The proof was supposed to be found in the
fact that the prophets condemned the cultus ; now it is
owned that they did not condemn it as in any sense incom-
1 Cf. Isa. lvi. 6, 7 ; lx. 7 ; Ixvi. 23, etc. ; Jer. xvii. 24-27 ; xxxiii. 17-18,
etc. (cf. p. 95) ; Ezek. xl. ff.
2 Cf. Jer. xvii. 21-27 ; "As I commanded your fathers " (ver. 22) ;
Isa. Iviii. 13, 14.
8 Isa. vi. * Isa. i. 12. 8 Hos. viii. 13. • Ps. xl. 6.
7 Hex. p. 176 ; cf. Smend, Alttest. Religionsgeschichte, p. 168. See also
Smend's article, referred to on next page.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 159
patible with the belief that it was a lawful and necessary
part of the service of Jehovah. If, further, we ask — What
kind of cultus was it which existed in the days of the
prophets? we get a number of surprising admissions, to
which it will be necessary that we return later. It was a
cultus " of very old and sacred usage," 1 and highly elaborate
' in character. There were " splendid sacrifices . . . presum
ably offered in accordance with all the rules of priestly
skill." 2 We have, in fact, only to analyse the passages in
the prophets to see what a highly elaborate ritual system
was already in operation in their day — as elaborate, practi
cally, as in the Levitical Code itself. It is interesting to
read what one of the ablest adherents of the Graf school —
Rudolf Smend — had to say on this point at an earlier
stage in his development. In his work Moses apud
Prophetas, Smend discerns what he calls " Levitismus " peering
out from the pages of the oldest prophets — Amos and Hosea.
He says, even : " It is sufficiently evident that the cultus of
Jehovah, as it existed in the time of the earlier prophets,
and doubtless long before, is by no means at variance with
the character of Leviticus. Whatever judgment may be
formed of the age of this book, the opinion hitherto enter
tained of the birth, growth, and maturity of the religion of
Israel will undergo no change."3 In a valuable article
contributed to the Studien und Kritiken in 1876, he
reiterates these views, and concludes : " Accordingly, we do
not know what objection can be made to the earlier com
position of Leviticus on the ground of the older prophetical
writings."* In such statements, supported by reasons
which time has done nothing to refute, we are far enough
away from the theory that nothing was known of a divine
sanction of ritual ordinances till after the time of the exile.
To ourselves, as before said, it appears incredible that
no ordinances for religious worship should have been given
to the people by. Moses, in settling the constitution of
1 Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 59.
2 Ibid. p. 55. See below, p. 303.
3 P. 75.
4 Stud, und Krit. 1876, p. 661. This important article was written ten
years after the appearance of Grafs work (see below, p. 325), in criticism of
Duhm, and from the standpoint that up to that time "a stringent proof"
had not been offered "either for or against" Graf's hypothesis of the
age of Leviticus, and that such "was not to be looked for in the near
future "(p. 644).

i6o THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Israel If such were given, they must, in the nature of the
case, have included regulations about priesthood, sacrifice,
purification, and much else.1 This does not prove the
existence of the Levitical ritual Code; but such laws, if
given, must have covered a large part of the ground of that
Code. It does not prove even that the laws were written,
but it is highly probable that they soon were.2 If these
laws are not incorporated in our present Levitical Code, it
is certain they are not to be found anywhere else. We
shall be better able to judge on this point, when we have
looked at some of the more special institutions of the
national worship.
We proceed now, accordingly, to consider how it stands
with such institutions as the ark, the tabernacle, the priesthood,
and, in connection with these, with the unity of worship,
made by Wellhausen, as we shall see, the turning-point of
his whole discussion.3 Graf, with his thesis of the post-
exilian origin of the Levitical Code, is the pioneer here,
and we are not sure that the case for the new theory, as
respects the above institutions, has been more plausibly
presented anywhere than it is in his pages.* It is not
denied by the Graf school that there was an ark, a tent to
cover it, and priests of some sort, from early times, but it is
contended with decision that these were not, and could not
have been, the ark, tabernacle, and priesthood of the
Levitical Code. All we read on these subjects in the Priestly
sections is "unhistorical fiction" of exilic or post-exilic
origin. Rejecting hypotheses, our duty will be to turn the
1 We shall see below that Dillmann, in fact, supposes Lev. xvii.-xxvi.
(mainly) to be a very old, and in basis Mosaic, code, which he thinks may
originally have stood after Ex. xxiv. Cf. his Exod.-Lev. on Ex. xxv. and
Lev. xvii., and see below, pp. 328, 376.
2 See below, p. 329. Dillmann says in the Preface to his Commentary
on Exodus-Leviticus: "That the priesthood of the central sanctuary
already in ancient times wrote down their laws is the most natural assump
tion in the world, and can be proved from A, C, D [= P, J, D] : that the laws
of the priesthood and of divine service were written down, not to say made,
first of all in the exile and in Babylon, where there was no service of God,
is contrary to common sense. "
8 Hist, of Israel, p. 368. See below, pp. 173 ff.
4 On Graf and his place in the critical development, see next chapter
(pp. 199 ff.). His principal work, Die Geschichtlichen Biicher des Alten
Testaments, was published in 1866. His chief predecessors were Vatke and
George, but their works had produced little impression, and were regarded as
conclusively refuted. Cf. Delitzsch, Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 67 ff.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 161
matter round about, and try to look at the facts historically.
This will prepare the way for the later critical inquiry.
III. The Sacred Ark
It has been seen above what the critics think of the
original ark which they allow to have existed. It was a
sort of fetish-chest in which Jehovah, represented by two
stones, probably meteoric, was thought of as carried about ;
or it was itself a fetish.1 This may be met by observing
that, while Jehovah's presence is conceived of as connected
with the ark, the special symbol of His presence — the cloud,
or pillar, or glory — is always distinguished from both ark
and sanctuary : this in both JE and P sections.2 The cloud,
or pillar of cloud and of fire, is represented as above the
tabernacle, or over the people, or as going before them in their
journeyings. Jehovah descends in the pillar to commune
with Moses at the tabernacle. He dwells upon or between
the cherubim.3 His presence, therefore, it is perfectly plain,
was not identified with the ark, or with anything in it.
1. It is not denied, then, and it is a valuable admission,
that there was an ark of Jehovah in Israel from the times
of Moses. Where did it come from? The ark does not
appear to have been with the people in Egypt: we may
therefore conclude it to be a Mosaic institution. A first point
of interest relates to the making of the ark. The only
account we have of its construction is in the Priestly Code,
Ex. xxv. 10 ff. ; xxvii. 1 ff. ; outside of P the first incidental
notice is in the important passage, Num. x. 33-36, "And
the ark of the covenant went before them," etc., where,
however, its existence is firmly assumed. On the critical
side it is said — indeed, is taken for granted as one of the
things about which " no doubt " exists * — that originally
the JE narrative also must have had an account of the
making of the ark, now displaced by that of P.6 Let this
1 See above, p. 137.
2 Cf. Ex. xxxiuV 9 ; xl. 34-38 ; Num. x. 84 ; xiv. 10-14 ; xx. 6 ; Deut.
xxxi . 15, etc.
8 Ex. xxv. 22 ; 1 Sam. iv. 4. etc.
4 Addis says : "He [the J writer] no doubt also mentioned here the
making of the ark, to which he refers shortly [where?] afterwards." — Hex.
i. p. 155.
' Thus practically all the critics, as Wellhausen, Kuenen, Dillmann,
Driver, Addis, Carpenter, Kennedy, etc.
II

1 62 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
be assumed : we discover from Deut. x. 1-5, which is supposed
to follow this older account, that the ark of the JE story
was an ark made " of acacia wood," and was the repository
of the two tables of the law, which agrees perfectly with
the history we have. Thus far, therefore, there is no con
tradiction. It remains to be seen whether any emerges in
the further notices of the nature, uses, fortunes, and
destination of the ark.
2. We pass to the subsequent history of the ark, and note
on this the following interesting facts. Its familiar name
is " the ark of the covenant." 1 It is connected with the
presence of Jehovah among His people.2 It goes before, or
accompanies, the people in their journeys.3 It is invested
with the most awful sanctity: to touch it irreverently is
death.* It is taken charge of, and borne, by Levitical
priests, or by Levites simply.5 It is found, in the days of
the Judges, at Bethel, where Phinehas, the son of Eleazar,
the son of Aaron, ministers before it.6 In Eli's days it is in
the sanctuary at Shiloh.7 It is overshadowed by the
cherubim.8 After its captivity among the Philistines, and
prolonged sojourn at Kirjath-jearim,9 it is brought up by
David with the greatest solemnity and the utmost re
joicings to Zion, and there lodged in a tent he had pitched
for it.10 Finally, it is brought into the temple of Solomon,
when we are told it had nothing in it " save the two tables
of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb." u Here, as it
stands, is a very fair history of the ark from pre-exilian
sources, and it requires some ingenuity to discover wherein
the ark of these accounts differs, in structure, character,
and uses, from the ark of the law in Exodus. That ingenuity,
1 This name occurs in Num. x. 33 ; xiv. 44 ; Deut. x. 8 ; xxxi. 9, 25, 26 ;
Josh. iii. (seven times) ; iv. 7, 9, 18 ; vi. 6, 8 ; viii. 33 ; Judg. xx. 27 ;
1 Sam. iv. 3-5 (see above, p. 137) ; 2 Sam. xv.'24 ; 1 Kings iii. 15 ; vi. 19 ;
viii. 1, 6, etc. etc. In all the cases in the older history the words " of the
covenant " are simply struck out by the critics. Cf. , e.g. , Kuenen, Hist, of Israel,
i. pp. 257-58; or Oxford Hex. on Josh, iii., iv. The passages then read
" the ark of Jehovah " only. See Note at end of chapter.
2 Num. x. 33, etc.
3 Num. x. 33-36 ; cf. Ex. xl. 36, 37 ; Num. ix. 15-23 (P). On the
position of the ark, see below, pp. 168-69.
4 1 Sam. vi. 19 ; 2 Sam. vi. 7.
8 Josh, iii., iv; 2 Sam. xv. 24, 29 ; cf. Deut. xxxi. 9, 25.
6 Judg. xx. 27, 28. 7 1 Sam. iii. 3.
8 1 Sam. iv. 4 ; 2 Sam. vi. 2. 9 1 Sam. vii. 1, 2.
10 2 Sam vi. u 1 Kings viii. 1-11.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 163
however, is not wanting. One point of alleged contradic
tion, viz., that in JE the ark is represented as borne at a
distance in front of the host, while in P it is carried, with
the tabernacle, in the midst of the host, is considered below
in connection with the place of the tabernacle.1 For the rest,
the method is always at hand, and is freely resorted to, of
getting rid of inconvenient testimony by the assumption of
interpolation. This disposes, as noted above, of the words
" the covenant," and also of the mention of the " cherubim," 2
and gets rid of the notices of " Levites " as bearing the ark, in
distinction from the priests. Thus, e.g., Professor H. P. Smith,
following Wellhausen, disposes of the testimony in 2 Sam. xv.
24. That passage reads : " And lo Zadok also, and all the
Levites that were with him, bearing the ark of the covenant
of God." This will not do, so the comment is : " The present
text inserts ' and all the Levites with him.' But as the
Levites are unknown to the Books of Samuel [they had
been mentioned before in 1 Sam. vi. 15], this is obviously a
late insertion. Probably the original was 'Zadok and
Abiathar.'"8 On this subject, it can scarcely be held to
be a contradiction that in some of the above- passages it is
the "priests" who bear the ark, while the Levitical law
assigns that duty to the "Levites." The carrying of the
ark by the Levites on ordinary occasions, and as servants
of the priests,* does not preclude the bearing of it by priests
on special occasions, as in Josh, iii., iv. It was the priests
who were at all times primarily responsible for its right
conveyance.5 3. A point of some importance in its bearings on the
descriptions of the ark in the Priestly Code, which, how
ever, we do not remember having seen adverted to, is the
1 This, as will be seen below, is a question of some real difficulty. It is not
clear whether the ark was always, or only on special occasions, borne in front
of the host ; or whether it was not borne usually in front of the tabernacle
in midst of the host, still with the idea of leadership. In either case, as the
passages cited show, it was the movement of the ark, or of the guiding
pillar, which determined that of the camp.
2 "It is more than probable," says Kuenen, "that the cherubim were
not mentioned by the author himself, but were inserted by a later writer." —
Rel. of Israel, i. p. 259.
8 Samuel ("Internal Crit. Com."), p. 344. In defence of these passages
(also in LXX), see Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce Liviiique, p. 199.
4 Num. iv. 15, etc.
8 Num. iv. 19. In 1 Sam. iv. 4, Hophni and Phinehas (priests) are said to
be " there with the ark of the covenant of God " (not, apparently, its bearers).

164 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
relation of the ancient ark to that of the Solomonic temple.
It is not denied, as we have seen, that there was an old
Mosaic ark ; but the fact is perhaps not always sufficiently
attended to that, according to every testimony we have, it
was this identical ark which was brought up and deposited
in Solomon's splendid house. The Mosaic tabernacle, on
Graf's view, is a " fiction " — a " copy " of the temple : it is
the temple made "portable," and. projected back into
Mosaic times. But the ark, at all events, was not a new
thing in the temple. It was the old ark that was brought
into it ; 1 the same old ark that can be traced back to the
times of the Judges, and of Moses, and had experienced so
many vicissitudes. It was an ark, therefore, which con
tinued to exist, and whose character and structure could be
verified, down to late historical times. It follows that, if
the ark of the law is a " copy " of the ark of the temple, it
must, in its general character, form, and structure, be pretty
much a "copy," likewise, of the real ark of the pre-
Solomonic age. Exilian priests would hardly invent an ark
totally different from that which had perished within quite
recent memory.
Another reflection is suggested by the pre-Solomonic
history of the ark. No one disputes the sacredness of the
ark in the eyes of the Israelites. It was in a sense the
centre and core of their religion. They had the most
undoubting belief in the manifestations of God's presence in
connection with it, and in the importance of its possession,
and of worship before it, as a pledge of God's favour and
protection. Yet after its return from the Philistines, and
the judgment at Beth-shemesh, we find this holiest of
objects taken to the house of a private Israelite, Abinadab,
and allowed to remain there till David's time, i.e.? during
the whole reign of Saul, guarded by this man's son;
apparently, therefore, without Levitical ministration,
neglected and almost forgotten by the people.3 Then again
1 1 Kings viii. 6ff. "The ark was guarded," says Dr. Driver, "till it
was transferred by Solomon to the temple."— Introd. p. 138.
2 The twenty years of 1 Sam. vii. 2 do not denote the whole duration of
the ark's stay at Kirjath-jearim, but the period, apparently, till the time
of Samuel's reformation.
8 1 Sam. vii. 1, 2. Cf. below, p. 178. The ingenious suggestion of Van
Hoonacker (Le Sacerdoee, p. 192) that " Eleazar his son" should be "son
of Eleazar " (a priest) is without sufficient warrant.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 165
we find it raised to highest honour by David and Solomon.
We ask — Would it be safe to argue from the seeming
neglect, at least intermission of religious use, of this sacred
object for so long a period, to the denial of its earlier high
repute, and established place, in the worship of the people ?
Or, if so extraordinary an irregularity must be admitted in
this confused time, must we not, in consistency, admit the
likelihood of many more ?
IV. The Tabernacle
An initial difficulty in the Mosaic account is the richness
and splendour of the " tent of meeting," said to be reared by
command of God in the wilderness. This of itself, however,
is not insuperable. Neither the resources nor the skill of
the people in leaving Egypt were so slender as the critics
represent,1 and the rearing of a sanctuary was an object for
which they would strip themselves of their best. If the
ark was as fine an object as its description implies, we
should expect that the tabernacle made for its reception
would have some degree, of splendour as well. Much more
radical is the position now taken up by the Graf-
Wellhausen critics. Such a tabernacle as the Priestly Code
describes, they tell us, never existed. The tent of the
wilderness is a pure creation of the post-exilian imagination.
In Wellhausen's language: "The temple, the focus to
which the worship was concentrated, and which was not
built until Solomon's time, is by this document regarded
as so indispensable even for the troubled days of the
wanderings before the settlement, that it is made portable,
and in the form of a tabernacle set up in the very beginning
of things. For the truth is, that the tabernacle is the copy,
not the prototype, of the temple at Jerusalem."2 The
critical and other difficulties which inhere in such a
conception are left over for the present ; we look only at
the facts.
1. Our starting-point here, as before, is the admission of
the critics that a tabernacle of some sort did exist, as a
1 Cf. Knobel, quoted by Dillmann, Exod.-Lev. pp. 268-70.
2 Hist, of Israel, pp. 36-37. In these expressions about the sanctuary
being "made portable, "and the tabernacle being "the copy," not the
prototype, of the temple, Wellhausen but repeats Graf, Geschicht. BUcher,
pp. 53, 55, 61, etc.

1 66 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
covering for the ark and a place of meeting with Jehovah,
at least as far back as they will allow the history to go.
Graf may be quoted here, though his concessions are ampler
than those which Wellhausen would be disposed to make.
" The presence of the ark in the field (1 Sam. iv. 3 ff.)," he
says, " presupposes also that of a tent, of however simple a
character, which might serve as a protection and lodging
for the ark and for the priests with the sacred utensils;
and it Hes hkewise in the nature of the case that before this
tent, where sacrifice was offered by the priests, and the will
of Jehovah inquired after, meetings and deliberations of the
host were also held ; hence the tent was the ohel moed
(tent of meeting)." 1 But then, it is contended, this is not
the tabernacle of the Priestly Code, and reference is made
in proof to " the tent " which, in Ex. xxxiii. 7, Moses is said to
have pitched (R.V. "used to pitch") "afar off" without the
camp, and to have called "the tent of meeting," when as
yet the tabernacle of the law was not erected. Wellhausen
goes further, and will have it that the pre-Solomonic
tabernacle was not a single tent at all, but a succession of
changing tents, staying himself in this contention, of all
authorities in the world, on the Chronicler,2 whose words —
" have gone from tent to tent, and from one tabernacle to
another " — are made to bear a sense which that writer
assuredly never dreamt of.
Now it is the case, and is an interesting fact, that after
the sin of the golden calf, before the Sinaitic tabernacle was
made, Moses is related to have taken — strictly, "used to
take" — "the tent," and pitched it "without the camp,
afar off from the camp," and to have called it " the tent
of meeting." The mention of " the tent " comes in quite
abruptly, and may fairly suggest that we have here, as the
critics say, part of an originally independent narrative — the
same to which also Num. xi. 16 ff., and xii. 4 ff. (cf. Deut.
xxxi, 14, 15) belong. As it stands in the context, however,
1 Geschicht. Bucher, pp. 57-58.
3 Hist, of Israel, p. 45: "The parallel passage in 1 Chron. xvii. 5
correctly interprets the sense'' (cf. 2 Sam. vii. 6). How the Chronicler
could be supposed to say this, in Wellhausen's sense, not only of the
" tent " (ohel), but of the "tabernacle " (mishkan), is not explained. "The
passage says no more," remarks Delitzsch, " than that the ark of Jehovah
wandered from place to place, so that He abode in it, sometimes here and
sometimes there." — Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 63.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 167
the impression distinctly produced is, that the withdrawal
of the tent or tabernacle from the camp is penal in character
(cf. vers. 3-5 : " I will not go up in the midst of thee "),
and that the tabernacle itself is a provisional one, meeting
a need till the permanent " tent of meeting " is got ready.
The tenses, indeed, imply usage ; but duration of usage is
limited by the writer's thought, and need not cover more
than the period of alienation, or at most the interval — the
greater part of a year — till the erection of the new
tabernacle.1 The critics, however, will not admit this ; and,
comparing the passages above mentioned, maintain that
there are the clearest points of distinction between this JE
tent or tabernacle and that of the Priestly Code. The
former, it is said, is always represented as pitched without
the camp ; the latter is as invariably pitched in the midst of
the camp. The one is a place of revelation (Jehovah
descends in the pillar to the door of the tabernacle) ; the
other is a place of divine service or worship. The one has
Joshua as its attendant ; 2 the other is served by priests and
Levites. On this last objection — the absence of Levites —
it is enough to remark that, at the time referred to in Ex.
xxxiii., Levites had not yet been appointed ; the ark itself
had not yet been made. The other two objections deserve
more consideration. They rest on grounds which have a
degree of plausibility, though closer examination, we are
convinced, will bring out the essential harmony of the
accounts. 2. The first question relates to the place of the taber
nacle. Is there real contrariety here between the JE and
the P accounts ? When we examine the evidence for the
contention that all through the wanderings, in the JE
narrative, the place of the tabernacle was without the
camp — "afar off" — we are struck, first, with its exceeding
meagreness. It consists of the two passages in Numbers
above referred to, concerning which it may be observed
that, while their language, taken alone, will agree with this
hypothesis, it certainly does not necessitate it. It is not
1 Cf. Ex. xxxv. 30 ff. ; xl. 1 ff.
2 Wellhausen says: "Thus Moses has Joshua with him as his cedituus,
who does not quit the tent of Jehovah."— Hist, of Israel, p. 130. Cf.
Addis in loc., Heir. i. p. 155 : "The tent of meeting is outside the camp ;
it is not guarded by Levites, much less by the sons of Aaron, but by
Joshua, the ' minister ' of Mosee " But see Deut. xxxi. 9, etc.

1 68 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
conclusive that we are told on one or two occasions that
persons " went out " from the camp to the tent,1 or that Moses
" went out " from the tent to the people ; 2 for the same
language would be as appropriately used of going out from
any particular encampment to the open space in the centre
where the sanctuary stood; just as it is said of Dathan
and Abiram that they " came out " and stood in the door
of their own tents.3 The question requires to be decided
on broader grounds. Even in Ex. xxxiii. 7, the natural
suggestion of the statement that Moses, in particular
circumstances, took the tent — assumed as known — and
pitched it "without the camp, afar off from the camp,"
would seem to be that the original and proper place of
the tent was within the camp ; and there are not wanting
in the narratives indications that this was the real state
of the case. Both in the JE and the P sections the
region outside the camp is regarded as a region of
exclusion from Jehovah's presence; it would be passing
strange if His tabernacle, surmounted by the cloudy pillar,
were thought of as pitched "afar off" in this region. It
requires much faith, for instance, to believe that when
Miriam, smitten with leprosy, was " shut up outside the
camp seven days," * she was nearer the tabernacle of
Jehovah than the people who were within ; or that, when
quails were sent, the tabernacle was in such a position as
to be certainly smothered by them when they fell;6 or
that, when Balaam, looking on Israel, testified, "Jehovah
his God is with him, and the shout of a king is among
them," 8 the tabernacle of Jehovah was really beheld by the
seer as far apart from the people. But there are other
and more crucial JE passages. When, in particular, it is
declared in Num. xiv. 44 that " the ark of the covenant
1 Num. xi. 24-30 ; xii. 4, 5.
2 Num. xi. 24. Cf. Straek's remarks on these passages in his Com-
mentary, in loc.
8 Num. xvi. 27.
4 Num. xii. 14, 15. It should be noted that this JE narrative implies
the leprosy law of Lev. xiii. (P).
5 Num. xi. 31, 32. Van Hoonacker, in his Le Sacerdoce Levitique
(pp. 145-46), has an ingenious way of explaining these passages, in
comparison with Ex. xxxiii. 7 (where, as he points out, "the tent" is
assumed as already known), by the supposition of a series of transpositions
in the narrative ; but we do not feel this to be justified or necessary.
6 Num. xxiii. 21. Balaam, in chap, xxiv.' 2, sees " Israel dwelling
according to their tribes," which implies the orderly encampment of P.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 169
of Jehovah, and Moses, departed not out of the camp," it
cannot be supposed that the ark was, before starting,
already outside of the camp — "afar off"; the words imply
as plainly as may be that its resting-place was within the
camp. When, again, Moses is related in Num. x. 36 to
have said at the resting of the ark, " Return, 0 Jehovah,
to the ten thousands of Israel,"1 his formula has hardly
any meaning if the ark did not return from going before
the people to a resting-place within the camp. In the
same direction point such allusions as "the cloud of
Jehovah was over them by day, when they set forward
from the camp " 2 — " and Thy cloud standeth over them 3 —
allusions which those who adopt the hypothesis we are
criticising think it necessary to relegate to P or a redactor ; *
together with instances of an immediate acting, speaking,
or calling of Jehovah from the tabernacle6 (were Moses,
Aaron, and Miriam, e.g., " afar off" when they heard Jehovah
call " suddenly " to them, as in Num. xii. 4 ?), or of direct
transactions with the officials of the sanctuary.6 Taken
together, these things show that, while there may be
divergences in the mode of representation, there is no
essential disagreement in the accounts as to the place of
the tabernacle.
3. Neither, when we take the history as a whole, does
there appear to be any better basis for the statement that
in JE the tabernacle is a place of revelation only, whereas
in P it is peculiarly a place of worship. In P also, as in
1 Cf. Dillmann and Strack, in loc. Professor Gray's comments on this
passage, Num. x. 33-35, are a good example of the new method. "Here,"
he says, "if we may judge from so fragmentary a record, it [the ark] is
conceived as moving.of itself (!) ... 35. Here, as in ver. 33, the ark starts
of itself, and the words that follow [' Rise up, O Jehovah,' etc.] may be
taken as addressed to it. . . . 36. Such words could be suitably addressed
to the ark returning from battle to its fixed sanctuary . . . after the
people were settled in Canaan. It is less clearly suitable to the circum
stances of the march through the wilderness : the people overtake the
ark, the ark does not return to them " (?) — Numbers (" Inter. Crit. Com."),
p. 97. How would Dr. Gray apply his canon to Ps. cxxxii. 8 ?
2 Num. x. 34. 8 Num. xiv. 14.
4 Thus Dillmann, Gray, the Oxford Hex., etc. (not Addis). On the
ground that " E nowhere describes it [the pillar] as ' over ' it " [the tent]—
the thing to be proved — the Oxford annotator arbitrarily makes the word
over in Num. xii. 10 bear a different sense from what it ordinarily has
in this connection. The phrase is identical with that in Ex. xl. 36 ; Num.
ix. 17 (P).
6 E.g., Num. xi. 1, 10, 16 ; xii. 4. 'E.g., Deut. xxxi. 9, 25, 26.

170 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
JE, the tabernacle is a place of revelation ; in JE, and in
pre-Solomonic times, as in P, it is a place of worship, with
its altars and sacred furniture, its priestly ministrants, its
assembhes at the feasts, etc. Only by isolating one or two
special passages, in which the aspect of revelation in JE
is prominent,1 can it be made to appear otherwise. In
certain respects there is obvious resemblance from the
first. In P, as well as in JE, the tabernacle is called
ohel moed (tent of meeting):2 in P this alternates with
the name mishkan (dwelling). A curious fact here, and
one puzzling to the critics, is that in certain sections of
P (Ex. xxv.-xxvii. 19) only mishkan is used; in others
(chaps, xxviii-xxxi.) only ohel moed ; in others the names
intermingle.3 In both JE and P Jehovah manifests His
presence in a cloud of fire ; * the fact that in JE the cloud
is spoken of as a "pillar" is no contradiction. If in JE
Jehovah descends in the pillar to the door of the tabernacle
to speak with Moses, this mode of communication is also
recognised in P (" At the door of the tent of meeting . . .
where I will speak with you," Ex. xxix. 42, 43) ;5 else
where Jehovah speaks from between the cherubim.6 The
tabernacle in both JE and P contains the ark of the
covenant; a Levitical priesthood in its service is implied
in the JE notices in Joshua,7 and in Deuteronomy.8 A
tabernacle existed, and was set up in Shiloh, in Joshua's
time, as Josh, xviii. 1, ascribed to P,9 declares: this re
appears under the name " the house of God " in Shiloh, in
Judg. xviii. 31.10 In this connection it should not be
1 Num. xi., xii. ; Deut. xxxi. 14, 15. These are the only passages after
Ex. xxxiii. 7-11 : a narrow basis for an induction.
2 In JE, e.g., in Num. xi. 16 ; xii. 4 ; Deut. xxxi. 14.
8 Cf. Oxford Hex. ii. p. 120. In consistency different authors ought to
be assumed. 4 Numbers and Deut. for JE ; in P, Ex. xl. 34-38 ; Num. ix. 15-23,
etc. It should be noted that in the narrative of the dedication of the
temple in 1 Kings viii., vers. 10, 11 are modelled directly on the P passage,
Ex. xi. 34-35.
6 Cf. Oxford Hex. ii. p. 120. 6 Ex. xxv. 22 ; Num. vii. 89.
7 Josh, iii.-vi. 8 Deut. x. 6, 8 ; xxxi. 9, 25, 26.
9 On the critical analysis here, of. Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce,
p. 177. 10 Cf. Judg. xix. 18, " to the house of Jehovah," where, however, the
LXX has ' ' my (the man's own) house " (R. V. marg. ). The ' ' house of God "
in Judg. xx. 26 is more correctly "Bethel," where either the tabernacle
was for a time (cf. chap. ii. 1, in LXX), or where the ark was temporarily
taken for the war.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 171
overlooked that the Book of the Covenant (JE) already
provides for offerings being brought to "the house of
Jehovah thy God." l At the sanctuary at Shiloh an annual
feast, described as " a (or the) feast of Jehovah," 2 is held,
which is most naturally identified with one of the three
prescribed feasts3 (cf. 1 Sam. i. 3). The notices of the
ark,* again, and the custom of "inquiring of Jehovah,"5
attest the existence of a stated priesthood, of sacrifices — the
offering of " burnt offerings and peace offerings before
Jehovah " 6 — and of the priestly ephod. In face of all this,
Wellhausen's assertion that in the Book of Judges " there
is no mention of the tabernacle ... it is only in pre
paration, it has not yet appeared,"7 can only excite
astonishment. When we pass to the Books of Samuel, we get fresh and
valuable light on the tabernacle, and its place in the
rehgion of Israel. At the end of the period of the Judges,
it is still at Shiloh, with Eli, of the house of Aaron, as its
principal priest. It bears the old name — "the tent of
meeting" — to which no suspicion need attach;8 contains
the ark with its cherubim;9 is the centre of worship for
" all Israel " ; 10 in its furniture and ritual suggests the pre
scriptions of the Levitical Code. "The lamp of God"
burns, as directed, all night;11 from the later incidental
mention of the shewbread, and of the regulations connected
with it, at Nob,12 we may infer the presence of the table
1 Ex. xxiii. 19. It is one of the astounding statements in Wellhausen
that "house of God " always means "house of an image." — Hist, of Israel,
p. 130. 2 Judg. xxi. 19.
8 According to Bertheau, the word hag is almost without exception used
of the three great feasts. — Exeg. Handb. p. 278.
4 Judg. xx. 27, 28.
6 Judg. i. 1 ; xx. 18, 23, 28.
6 Judg. xx. 26.
7 Hist, of Israel. Graf also says that there is no mention of " a sacred
tent " in the time of the Judges, but remarks that this is not to be wondered
at, as the ark of the covenant is also not mentioned (p. 58). The critics
in both cases reach their results by rejecting what does not please them.
" The house of God " and " the ark of the covenant " are both mentioned
in Judges. 8 See next page. 9 1 Sam. iv. 4 ; cf. above, p. 137.
10 1 Sam. ii. 14, 19 ; iii. 19, 21.
" " 1 Sam. iii. 3 ; cf. Ex. xxvii. 20-21.
12 1 Sam. xxi. Dr. Driver objects that these allusions do not prove that
the institutions "were observed with the precise formalities prescribed
in P." — Introd. p. 142. How much does one expect in a historical allusion S

172 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
with the shewbread. Elkanah goes up yearly to worship,1
and his sacrifice for his vow is according to the law.2 In
1 Sam. ii. 22, there is allusion to "the women who did
service at the door of the tent of meeting " — the only other
mention of these women being in Ex. xxxviii. 8. (P). The
genuineness of this important passage, the second half of
which, for reasons that may be guessed, is omitted in the
LXX (Vat. Cod.), has been disputed, but, it seems to us,
without sufficient reason.8
Thus far the resemblance of "the house of God" in
Shiloh to the tabernacle of the law must be admitted. But
objections, on the other hand, are urged, which, it is thought,
disprove the identification.* It is pointed out that the
sanctuary is described, not as a tent, but as a "temple"
(hekal), with doors and posts, which implies a permanent
structure;6 that Samuel is represented as sleeping in the
room where the ark of God was ; 6 that the sons of Eli were
within their Levitical rights in demanding uncooked
flesh, efJc. 7 But there is needed here not a little forcing of
the text to make out a case in favour of the critics. " Every
where else in 1 Sam. i.-iii.," says Wellhausen, arguing against
the name ohel moed, "the sanctuary of Shiloh is called
hekal " : 8 the " everywhere else " being simply twice. And
it does not prove his point. Whatever structures or
supports may have grown up about the sanctuary (for safety,
stability, protection, convenience) during its century-long
stay at Shiloh — and from its age such were to be expected
— it was still essentially, as 2 Sam. vii. 6 shows, " a tent and
a tabernacle," nor did Israelitish tradition ever know of
When the Chronicler expands, it is taken as a proof of non-historicity. See
below, p. 300.
1 1 Sam. i. 3, 7. Professor W. R, Smith allows that the yearly feasts
were observed (O.T. in J. C, p. 345).
2 1 Sam. i. 21, 25 ; cf. Lev. vii. 16 ; Num. xv. 8-10.
"The name ohel moed is, as we have seen, an old, well-attested name
of the tabernacle (cf. Graf, p. 58), and is found again, in both Heb. and
LXX, in 1 Kings viii. 4. As regards the women, even on the supposition,
which we do not accept, of a post-exilian composition of Ex. xxxviii., it is
inconceivable that there should occur this single mention of the women at
the tabernacle in the Code, if there was not old, well-established tradition
behind it.
4 Cf. in Wellhausen, Kuenen, W. R. Smith, and the critics generally. •
See the very dogmatic statements in 0. T. in J. C. , pp. 269-70.
6 1 Sam. i. 9 ; iii. 3. 6 1 Sam. iii. 3.
7 1 Sam. ii. 15. 8 Hist, of Israel, p. 41 (italics ours).

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 173
any other kind of habitation of Jehovah. The further sup
position that Samuel slept literally in the shrine of the ark
is, from the point of view of an Israelite, an outrage on all
probability; neither does the language of the text compel
any such meaning.1 Samuel and Eh slept in contiguous
chambers of some lodgment connected with the sanctuary,
such as may be presumed to have been provided for the
priests and others engaged in its service. The sin of the sons
of Eli consisted in their greed and violence, and in the appro
priating of such portions as their " flesh-hooks " laid hold of,
before the fat was burned on the altar, as the law required.2
The Levitical dues are presupposed : not contradicted.
What remains to be said on the tabernacle may be briefly
summed up. Ark and tabernacle, as above noted, were
separated during the long period that the former was at
Kirjath - jearim.. When David brought the ark to Zion,
the tabernacle, probably then old and frail, and unfitted for
removal, was at Gibeon.3 Thence it was brought up with
its vessels, and preserved, apparently, as a precious relic, in
Solomon's temple.* The supposition that the ohel moed
of 1 Kings viii 4 was not this historic tabernacle, but the
temporary tent set up by David on Zion, is contradicted by
the name,5 which is not given to that tent, by the mention
of the vessels, and by the unlikelihood that a temporary
tent would have such honour put upon it, while one can
well understand why the old tabernacle should.
V. The Unity of the Sanctuary
We now approach a subject of cardinal importance —
probably the one of most importance — in this discussion :
the unity of the sanctuary, and the conflict alleged to exist
on the centralisation of the cultus between Deuteronomy and
the earlier law and practice in Israel. The point of the
1 Delitszch says : " That he should sleep beside the ark would certainly
be a colossal contradiction of the law, but Wellhausen reads this into the
text."— Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 232. Cf. Wellhausen, p. 130. On
the alleged priesthood of Samuel, see below, pp. 189-90.
2 Lev. iii 1 ff. ; vii. 28 ff.
8 1 Kings iii. 4 ; viii. 4 ; cf. 1 Chron. xvi. 39, 40 ; 2 Chron. i. 3.
According to 1 Chron. xvi. 39, Zadok ministered at Gibeon.
4 1 Kings viii. 4 ; 2 Chron. v. 5. If this be admitted, then the tabernacle,
as well as the ark, was there for inspection till late times.
8 Cf. Delitzsch, as above, p. 63.

174 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
critical position on this head, briefly, is, that, while in
Deut. xiL — placed in or near the age of Josiah — we have
the law of a central sanctuary at which alone sacrifices are
lawful, in the earher history we have not only no trace of
this idea of a central sanctuary, in which all lawful worship
is concentrated, but, in the absolute freedom of worship
that prevailed, convincing proof that such a law was neither
observed nor known. The older law in Ex. xx. 24, on
which the people acted in that earlier time, granted, it is
alleged, unrestricted liberty of worship ; as Professor W. R
Smith interprets it — " Jehovah promises to meet with His
people and bless them at the altars of earth or unhewn
stone which stood in all corners of the land, on every spot
where Jehovah has set a memorial of His name."1 The
idea of the central sanctuary was, it is contended, the out
come of the great prophetic movement which resulted in
the reign of Josiah in the suppression of the bamoth, or
"high places," till then regarded as lawful. The relation
of the Deuteronomic to the Priestly Code — assumed to be
still later — on this subject is thus expressed by Wellhausen :
"In that book (Deuteronomy) the unity of the cultus is
commanded; in the Priestly Code it is presupposed. . . .
In the one case we have, so to speak, only the idea as it
exists in the mind of the lawgiver, but making no claim to
be realised till a much later date ; in the other, the Mosaic
idea has acquired also a Mosaic embodiment, with which it
entered the world at the very first." 2 The case, however,
is not nearly so strong as these statements would imply,
as many critical writers are coming themselves to perceive.3
Reserving, as before, what is to be said on the purely critical
aspects, we proceed to look at the subject in its historical
relations. The Priestly Code may be left out of consideration at
this stage, for it will scarcely be denied that, if there was a
sacrificial system in the wilderness at all, it would be a
system centralised in the sanctuary, as the Code represents.
The question turns then, really, on the compatibility of the
law in Deuteronomy with the enactment in Ex. xx. 24, and
1 Prophets of Israel, p. 109. 2 Hist, of Israel, pp. 85, 37.
8 This point is emphasised in an interesting lecture by Dr. S. A. Fries,
delivered to a Scientific Congress at Stockholm in 1897, entitled Moderns
Vorstellungen der Geschichte Israels (Modern Representations of the History
of Israel). See below, pp. 176, 273.

H. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 175
with the later practice. And the first condition of a satis
factory treatment lies, as the lawyers would say, in a proper
adjustment of the issues.
1. We do well to begin by .looking at the precise form
of the fundamental law in Ex. xx. 24 itself. The passage
reads: "An altar of earth thou shalt make to Me, and
shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace
offerings, thy sheep and thine oxen : in every place where I
record My name, I will come to thee and I will bless thee."
The law is general in form, but it must be observed that
there is nothing in it warranting the worship " at the altars
of earth and unhewn stones in all corners of the land,"
which Professor W. R. Smith reads into its terms. It is
addressed to the nation, not to the individual ; and it does
not speak of " altars," but only of " an altar." It is not a
law in the least giving unrestricted liberty of worship ; its
scope, rather, is carefully limited by the clause, " in every
place where I record My name."1 It would be unduly
narrowing the force . of this law to confine it, with some, to
the successive places where the sanctuary was set up during
the wilderness wanderings and in Canaan ; it must at least
include all places sanctified to their recipients by special
appearances or revelations of God. This fully explains,
and legitimises, e.g., the cases of Gideon,"2 of Manoah,3
of David,* of Solomon,6 of Elijah.6 Neither is there any
thing here that conflicts with Deuteronomy. The law in
Deut. xii. gives the general rule of worship at the central
sanctuary, but is not to be understood as denying that
circumstances might arise in which, under proper divine
authority, exceptional sacrifices might be offered. The
clearest proof of this is that Deuteronomy itself gives
directions for the building of an altar on Mount Ebal,
precisely in the manner of Ex. xx. 25.7
1 Professor W. R. Smith, replying to Dr. Wm. H. Green, seems to insist
that these words can only bear the meaning, " in all places" in the sense of
a number of co-existent sanctuaries. — Prophets, p. 394. On this see Note B
on the Force of Ex. xx. 24.
3 Judg. vi. 25, 26. 8 Judg. xiii. 16.
4 2 Sam. xxiv. 18. • 1 Kings iii. 4, 5.
8 1 Kings xviii. 31.
7 Deut. xxvii. 5, 6. — Van Hoonacker advocates the view that there were
two systems of worship — a private and a public — and supposes that the law
in Exodus refers to the former, and the law in Deuteronomy to the latter.
See his ingenious discussion in his Le Lieu du Culte dans la Legislation

176 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
2. With this, in the next place, must be taken the fact,
which the critics too much ignore, that, even in the earliest
period, the rule and ideal in Israel is that of a central
sanctuary, as the legitimate, place of worship. It has just
been seen that the fundamental law itself speaks of "an
altar," not of "altars," and no countenance is given any
where to a multitude of co-existing altars.1 It is not
questioned that the Priestly Code — the only Code we possess
for the wilderness — "presupposes" unity of worship;
neither, in the history, is there trace of any other than
centralised worship of a lawful kind during the wanderings.
The Book of the Covenant — the same which contains the
law of the altar — has plainly the same ideal of the unity of
the sanctuary. It takes for granted " the house of Jehovah
thy God," and requires that three times in the year all males
shall present themselves there before Jehovah.2 The
idolatrous shrines in Canaan are to be broken down.8 It is
in keeping with this, that, in prospect of entering Canaan,
Deuteronomy relaxes the law requiring the slaying of all
oxen, lambs, and goats at the door of the tabernacle,* and
permits the slaying of animals for food at home.5 In the
Book of Joshua, the incident of the altar Ed — the narrative
of which, in a way perplexing to the critics, combines
peculiarities of P and JE 6 — is a striking testimony to the
hold which this idea of the one altar had upon the tribes.
We have already seen that the tabernacle at Shiloh was the
recognised centre of worship for " all Israel " in the days of
rituelle des Hibreux, and in his Le Saeerdoce LCvitique (pp. 6 ff.). Similar
views are advocated by Fries, referred to above (p. 174), in his work, Die
Zentralisalion des israelitischen Kultus. The hypothesis is probably not
without its elements of truth, and would explain certain anomalies, but we
have not felt it necessary to adopt it.
1 Ex. xx. 24 ; xxi. 14. Cf. Robertson's Early Religion, pp. 405-13.
" It is remarkable," says Professor Robertson, "that we do not find in all the
Old Testament such a divine utterance as 'My altars' ; and only twice
does the expression 'Thy altars,' addressed to God, occur. It is found in
Elijah's complaint, which refers to Northern Israel, at a time when the
legitimate worship at Jerusalem was excluded ; and iu Ps. lxxxiv., where
it again occurs [on the critical view, post-exilian], no inference can be drawn
from it. On the other hand, Hosea says distinctly, ' Ephraim hath multi
plied altars to sin ' (Hos. viii. 11) " (p. 112).
8 Ex. xxiii. 14-17. 8 Ex. xxiii. 24.
4 Lev. xvii. 1 ff. The object of the law is to prevent promiscuous sacri
ficing to demons (vers. 5, 8).
8 Deut. xii. 20. See below, pp. 276, 314.
8 Josh. xxii. 9-34. On the criticism, of. Oxf. Hex., Driver, eto.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 177
Eli.1 In Judges, legitimate sacrifices are offered at the
sanctuary,2 or before the ark,8 or where God has " recorded
His name " in a special revelation ; * all others are condemned
as transgressions.6 The period succeeding the captivity of
the ark is considered below.
3. When we turn, next, to Deuteronomy, we discover
another fact of great importance in this connection, viz.,
that there also, as Wellhausen says, the unity of the cultus
is an " idea " which makes " no claim to be realised till a
much later date."6 The law in Deut. xii., in other words,
is not given as a law intended to come into perfect operation
from the first. . It has just been seen that the principle of
centralisation of worship was involved in the Mosaic system
from the commencement, but the realisation of the idea
was, and in the nature of the case could only be, gradual.
The law of Deuteronomy, in agreement with this, bears on
its face that it was not intended to be put strictly in
force till certain important conditions had been fulfilled —
conditions which, owing to the disobedience of the people,
who, during the time of the Judges, so often put back the
clock of their own history, were not fulfilled till as late as
the days of David and Solomon. The law reads thus:
"When ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which
Jehovah your God causeth you to inherit, and He giveth
you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye
dwell in safety : then shall it come to pass that the place
which Jehovah your God shall choose to cause His name to
'dwell there," etc.7 In point of fact, the unsettled state of
things here described lasted till the reign of David.8
1 See above, p. 171. Of. Jer. vii. 12. 2 Judg. xxi. 19.
8 Judg. xx. 26, 27 ; xxi. 2-4 (for " house of God " read " Bethel ").
4 Gideon, Manoah, as above, p. 175. Cf. Judg. ii. 1-5. It has been
inferred, and is not improbable, that Gideon's altar in Judg. vi. 24, to
which he gave the name "Jehovah-Shalom," was a monumental altar, like
the altar " Ed " in Josh. xxii. This would explain why he was required next
day to build a new altar beside it (ver. 26).
8 Judg. viii. 27, xvii. 5, 6, etc. Dr. W. R. Smith appears to assume
that the phrase "before Jehovah" (Judg. xi. 11, etc.) always implies
sacrifice. That, however, is not so. Cf. Gen. xxvii. 7 ; Ex. vi. 12, 30 ;
Deut. iv. 10 ; ix. 25 ; 1 Sam. xxiii. 18. See Graf, Geschicht. Biicher, p. 58.
8 See above, p. 174. 7 Deut. xii. 10, 11.
8 2 Sam. vii. 1. Professor W. R. Smith allows that Deuteronomy "puts
the case as if the introduction of a strictly unified cultus was to be deferred
till the peaceful occupation of Palestine was accomplished." — O.T. in J. O.,
p. 272. Where then is the contradiction ?

178 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Accordingly, in 1 Kings iii. 2, it is not urged that the
law did not exist, or that it was not known, but
the excuse given for irregularities is that "there was
no house built for the name of Jehovah until these
days."1 This principle alone solves many difficulties, and
goes a long way to bring the history and the law into
harmony. 4. This leads, finally, to the remark that, in the inter
pretation of these laws, large allowance needs to be made
for the irregularities incident to times of political confusion
and religious declension. It is not fair to plead, as contra
dictory of the law, the falling back on local sanctuaries in
periods of great national and religious disorganisation, as
when the land was in possession of enemies, or when the
ark was in captivity, or separated from the tabernacle, or
when the kingdom was divided, and the state-worship in
the Northern division was idolatrous. In particular, the
period following the rejection of Eli and his sons was one of
unusual complications, during which Samuel's own person
would seem to have been the chief religious centre of the
nation.2 It is here that the critical case finds its strongest
support, and there are undoubted difficulties. How could it
be otherwise, after "the capture of the ark, the fall of
Shiloh, and the extension of the Philistine power into the
heart of Mount Ephraim " ? 3 We are reminded, however,
that even after the ark had been brought back, and settled
in the house of Abinadab, Samuel made no attempt to remove
it to Nob, but "continued to sacrifice at a variety of shrines " *
— Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, Ramah. It is a sweeping and
unwarranted inference to draw from this that "Samuel
did not know of a systematic and exclusive system of
sacrificial ritual confined to the sanctuary of the ark"6
Samuel evidently knew something of it as long as Shiloh
stood ; for we read of no attempt then to go about the shrines
1 Cf. 1 Kings viii. 29 ; ix. 3 ; 2 Chron. vi. 5, 6.
8 Shiloh had probably fallen. Cf. Jer. vii. 12, xxvi. 6, with subsequent
mention of Nob, 1 Sam. xxi.
8 O.T. in J. (7., p. 271.
4 Ibid. p. 272. Professor Smith, as usual, overshoots the mark in his
statement that " Eleazar ben Abinadab was consecrated its priest." ' There
is no mention of a " priest " in 1 Sam. vii. 1. Eleazar was sanctified for
the custody of the ark. Samuel's apparent neglect of the ark has to be
accounted for on any theory (see above, p. 164).
8 Ibid. p. 274.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 179
sacrificing.1 The ark and Shiloh had been rejected; the
former had been taken to Kirjath-jearim under judgment
of God ; Israel felt itself in a manner under bereavement,
and " all the house of Israel lamented after Jehovah." 2 The
age was truly, as Professor Smith says " is generally argued,"
" one of religious interregnum " ; 8 are we, in such circum
stances, to judge Samuel by the law of an orderly and
settled time ? He fell back naturally, as even the law in
Deuteronomy permitted him to do, on local sanctuaries
until such time as Jehovah would give the people rest.
The law had its place ; but even under the law, " the letter
killeth, but the spirit giveth life;* and in no age were-
prophetically-minded men the slaves of the mere letter of
the commandment to the degree that the critics suppose.6
Samuel acted with a measure of freedom, as his circumstances
demanded; and writers who suppose that priests and
prophets were perpetually engaged in changing and modi
fying laws believed to be divine should be the last to
challenge his right to do so.
5. When all is said, it is plain from the statement in
the Book of Kings that, in the beginning of Solomon's
reign, there was a widespread resort of the people to high
places for worship, and that even the establishment of
Solomon's great temple, with its powerful centralising
influence, was not effectual to check this tendency. The
compiler of Kings looks on worship at " high places " before
the temple was founded as irregular, but excusable ; 6 after
that it is condemned. The history of these " high places "
has yet to be written in a fairer spirit than is generally
manifested in notices of them. Much obscurity, in reality,
rests upon them. In Judges the word does not occur, and
the defections described are mostly of the nature of worship
at the Canaanitish shrines of Baal and Ashtoreth.7 The few
allusions in Samuel are connected with Samuel's own city
1 The statement that Samuel regularly sacrificed at all the places men
tioned is an importation into the text. The special mention of his building
an altar at Ramah (1 Sam. vii. 17) would suggest that he did not. Professor
Smith's list of " sanctuaries " needs a good deal of sifting.
2 1 Sam. vii. 2. 8 0. T. in J.C., p. 272. 4 2 Cor. iii. 6.
8 See Note C on Freedom under the Law. Cf. Num. x. 16-20 ; 1 Sam.
xv. 22 ; xxi. 1-6 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 34 ; xxx. 17, 19.
6 1 Kings iii. 2, 3.
7 Allusions to Canaanitish "high places" are found in Lev. xxri. 30 ;
Num. xxi. 28 ; xxii. 41 ; xxxiii. 52.

180 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
of Ramah, and with the residence of the band of prophets
at Gibeah:1 elsewhere in Samuel they are unnoticed. It
may be inferred from the toleration accorded to it that the
greater part of what worship there was at " high places "
prior to the founding of the temple was directed to
Jehovah; afterwards, partly through Solomon's own evil
example,2 idolatry found entrance, and rapidly spread.
What the " high places " became in the Northern Kingdom,
latterly in Judah also, we know from the prophets. It
is, however, a perversion of the facts to speak of the
prophets as ever sanctioning, or approving of, this style of
worship. If it is replied that it is idolatrous worship which
the prophets so strongly reprobate, not worship at the " high
places" as such, it may be pointed out that they never
make such a distinction, or use language which would
suggest the aeceptableness of the bamoth worship in any
form.8 That Elijah mourned the breaking down of the
altars of Jehovah in Northern Israel is readily explicable
from the peculiar circumstances of that kingdom. To
Amos and Hosea, Micah and Isaiah, not less than to
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the one legitimate sanctuary is that
of Zion at Jerusalem.*
The conclusion we reach on this subject of the unity of
worship is, that the history is consistent with itself, provided
we accept its own premises, and do not insist on forcing on
it an alien theory of religious development. The reforma
tions of Hezekiah and Josiah then fall into their proper
places, without the necessity of assuming the invention of
ad hoc " programmes."
VI. The Aaronic Priesthood and the Levites
Ark and tabernacle imply a priesthood, and the notices
already cited from Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, and Deuter
onomy, abundantly show that from the days of Moses such
1 1 Sam. ix., x. 2 1 Kings xi. 7, 8.
8 Dr. W. H. Green says: "The people are never told that they may
sacrifice on the high hills and under green trees, or at Bethel and Gilgal and
Beersheba, if only they sacrifice to the Lord alone, and in a proper manner. ,
They are never told that God will be pleased with the erection of numerous
altars, provided the service upon them is rightly conducted." — Moses and
the Prophets, p. 157.
4 Cf. Amos i. 2 ; Isa. ii. 2 ; Mic. iv. 2 ; Hos. iii. 6. See Robertson,
Early Rel. p. 405.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS

1S1

a priesthood existed, and that it was Levitical. But was it
Aaronic?. And was there from early times such a dis
tinction between priests and Levites as the Priestly Code
represents ?
1. It is a fundamental contention of the new school that
a distinctively Aaronic priesthood was unknown before the
exile. Till Ezekiel, in his sketch of the new temple arrange
ments (chaps. xl.-xlviu.), initiated a distinction between
Zadokite priests and other Levites — a theory considered in
a later chapter1 — there was no distinction in principle
between priests and Levites : all Levites are possible priests.
In particular, a high priest of Aaronic descent was
unknown. The question of the relation of the priests to
other Levites is considered below; we inquire at present
whether it is the case that the earlier books give no traces
of an Aaronic priesthood. We affirm that they do, and
believe that the proof of this can only be set aside by the
usual circle method of first assuming that the Aaronic priest
hood is late, then, on that ground, disallowing the passages
which imply it.
Wellhausen has some wonderful constructive history on
this subject, on which we need not dwell. The Levites of
history, he affirms, have nothing to do with the old tribe of
Levi : in the J narrative in Exodus, Aaron was not origin
ally mentioned at all ; it is the line of Moses, not of Aaron,
that gives rise to the clerical guild.2 As an instance of the
critical procedure, we may take the case of the high priest.
It is, as just said, an essential part of the Wellhausen theory
that this functionary is a creation of the exile. He is, we
are told, still " unknown even to Ezekiel" 8 Unfortunately
for the theory, the high priest is expressly mentioned in
at least four places in 2 Kings, viz., in chaps, xii. 10, xxii.
4, 8, xxiii. 4* — the last two chapters being those relied
on as furnishing one of the main pillars of the critical
theory, the finding of " the book of the law " in the reign of
1 See below, Chap. IX.
2 Hist, of Israel, pp. 142-43. "Aaron," he says, " was not originally
present in J, but owed his introduction to the redactor who combined J and
E into JE." Precisely the opposite view is taken by Dillmann, Exod.-Lev.
p. 437. See also Kuenen below.
8 Ibid. pp. 148-49.
4 It occurs earlier in 2 Sam. xv. 27, if Wellhausen's amended reading of
that text is accepted.

1 82 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Josiah. The texts are sustained by the parallel passages in
Chronicles and by the LXX. What is to be done with
them ? They are simply struck out as interpolations, though
it is unaccountable why a redactor should have inserted
them in just those places, when so many more invited his
attention.1 If, on the other hand, we let the history speak for itself,
we get such notices as these, which are sufficiently unam
biguous. Deut. x. 6, attributed by the critics to E,2 informs
us that, after Aaron's 'death, " Eleazar his son ministered in
the priest's office in his stead."3 Josh. xxiv. 33 carries
this a step further by narrating the death of Eleazar, the
son of Aaron, and his burial in the hill of Phinehas, his
son. This is continued in Judg. xx. 27, 28, where we
read that " Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron,
stood before it [the ark] in these days." From some cause
unexplained, the high priesthood became transferred from
the line of Eleazar to that of Ithamar, and in the opening
of 1 Samuel, Eli, of this younger branch,* is found in office.
For the sins of his sons it is announced to Eli that his
house shall be deprived of its pre-eminence.6 This took
place in the reign of Solomon, when Abiathar was deposed,6
and Zadok, of the older line, obtained the sole high priest
hood.7 Thus far the case is exactly that described in the
words of the "man of God" to Eli in 1 Sam. ii. 27, 28:
" Thus saith Jehovah, Did I reveal myself unto the house of
thy father, when they were in bondage to Pharaoh's house ?
And did I choose him out of all the tribes of Israel to be
1 Graf does not challenge the earlier mention of the "high priest"
(Geschicht. Biicher, p. 4, etc.). Delitzsch (Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 228);
Dillmann (Nwm.-Jos. p. 645) ; Baudissin (Diet, of Bible, iv. p. 73) ; Van
Hoonacker, etc., defend the passages. Kautzsch removes 2 Kings xii. 10 as
a gloss, but lets the others stand. See below, p. 306. Cf. Professor H. P.
Smith's treatment of the Levites in Samuel, above, p. 163.
2 Thus Oxf. Hex., Addis, etc.
8 Van Hoonacker draws attention to the harmony of JE and P in passing
by Nadab and Abihu ; see below, p. 354.
4 Thus 1 Chron. xxiv. 3, but in 1 Sam. ii. 27, 28 also, Eli is assumed to
be of the house of Aaron. Wellhausen's idea that in this passage Moses,
not Aaron, is intended scarcely deserves notice. Cf. W. R. Smith, 0. T. in
J. C., p. 268.
8 1 Sam. ii. 27-36. 8 1 Kings ii. 26, 27.
7 1 Kings ii. 35. Owing to the political division in the reign of
David there was for a time a double priesthood. On Wellhausen's denial
of the Aaronite descent of Zadok, see Note D on the Genealogy of
Zadok.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 183
My priest, to go up unto Mine altar, to burn incense, to
wear an ephod before Me?"1 In using here the term
" high priesthood," we do not forget that it is held that the
high priest is an exilian creation. But is that so ? It has
just been pointed out that the title is repeatedly used in the
history of the kings. How, in fact, can we otherwise
express the undoubted position of supremacy or dignity
held by priests like Eleazar, Phinehas, Eli, Abiathar,
Zadok ? But there is another point of much interest. If
the high priesthood was a creation of the exile, we should
expect that the title would be one frequently met with in
the Levitical Code — at least more frequently than else
where. Yet it occurs there only three times altogether —
twice in Num. xxxv. (vers. 25, 28), and once in Lev. xxi. 10
— the last a passage which many take to be very old.2 The
term ordinarily used in the Code is simply " the priest."
The priesthood was Aaronic, but was it exclusively so;
or even exclusively Levitical? This is contested, but
without real force, on the ground of certain notices in the
historical books, as where the king is represented as taking
a lead in religious celebrations, offering sacrifices, blessing
the people,8 etc., or where David's sons and others are
spoken of as "priests."* A peculiar place is accorded,
certainly, to the king, as representative of Jehovah, in the
arrangements and conduct of worship,5 but this as much in
Chronicles and Ezekiel6 as in the Books of Samuel or
Kings. Nor is the king permitted to usurp functions
strictly sacerdotal.7 It is not to be supposed that Solomon
offered with his own hand the 22,000 oxen and 120,000
sheep mentioned in 1 Kings viii. 63, to the exclusion of the
1 Kuenen differs from Wellhausen in allowing in his Religion of Israel
a Levitical and originally Aaronic priesthood. " Levi was one of the
twelve tribes from the first . . . Moses and Aaron were Levites ; Aaron's
family discharges the priestly office at the common sanctuary," etc. — ii.
p. 302. Baudissin argues for an Aaronic priesthood at least older than
Josiah's reform. — Diet, of Bible, iv. p. 89.
2 On this subject see more fully below, Chap. IX. Cf. also Delitzsch,
Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 228.
8 David, 2 Sam. vi. 17, 18 ; Solomon, 1 Kings iii. 4 ; viii. 62-64.
4 2 Sam. viii. 18 (R.V.) ; xx. 26 (R.V.) ; 1 Kings iv. 5 (R.V.).
8 See the admirable remarks on this in Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce,
pp. 256 ff.
6 1 Chron. xv. 27 ; xvi. 2 ; 2 Chron. vi. 3, 12 ff. ; vii. 4 ff, etc. ;
Ezek. xliv. 3 ; xiv. 7, 16, 17, 22, etc.
7 Cf. the judgment on Uzziah, 2 Chron. xxvi. 16 ff. ; cf. 2 Kings xv. 5.

1 84 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
priests mentioned in vers. 3, 6, 10;1 or that David, earlier,
slew for himself the numerous offerings of 2 Sam. vi. 17, 18,
from which " a portion " was given to the whole multitude (also
with his own hand ? ). The priesthood of the sons of David,
however that difficult passage and related texts are to be
understood,2 was evidently something different from the
ordinary service of the altar, and cannot outweigh the very
full testimony to the Levitical character of the latter.
2. This brings us to the second question — that of the
relations of priests and Levites. The subject will come up
at an after stage, and we need not do more here than inquire
whether the representation of a special order of Aaronic
priests, in distinction from other Levites, is really, as
alleged, in conflict with Deuteronomy, and with the facts of
the earher history. The general position of critical writers
is that the view of the priesthood in the Levitical Code is
irreconcilable with the representation in Deuteronomy, and
with the earlier practice. In the Code a strong distinction
is made between "the sons of Aaron," who are the only
lawful priests, and the ordinary Levites, who are servants
of the sanctuary. In Deuteronomy, it is held, this distinc
tion has no place. The tribe of Levi as a whole is the
priestly tribe. As Professor W. R. Smith puts it:
"Deuteronomy knows no Levites who cannot be priests,
and no priests who are not Levites. The two ideas are
identical." 8 The phraseology in this book, accordingly, is
not "sons of Aaron," but "sons of Levi." It speaks oi
" the priests the Levites," not of " priests and Levites.'
This also, it is pointed out, is the phraseology of the older his
torical books — so far as not revised. The distinction between
" priests " and " Levites " is held to be due to a later degrada
tion of priests of the " high places," as sketched by Ezekiel.*
1 Wellhausen says that doubtless Solomon with his own hands offered
the "first" sacrifice (Hist, of Israel, p. 133), on which Van Hoonacker
remarks: "If the 21,999 oxen that remained can be said to be offered by
Solomon, when in reality they have been offered by others in his name,
the first may have been so also ; the text knows nothing of an offering of
the first" (p. 259).
2 Cf. the discussion in Van Hoonacker, pp. 268 ff., and see Note E on
David's Sons as Priests. On other questions in the historical books bearing
on the priesthood, see pp. 358, 363 ff., 388 below.
8 O.T. in J. C., p. 360.
4 See below, Chap. IX. p. 315 ff. The older theory was that Deuteronomy
implies an elevation of the Levites from their original lower status, and

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 185
What is true in this contention is to be frankly acknow
ledged. The difference in point of view and mode of speech
in Deuteronomy must be apparent to every reader ; and it
may at once be conceded to an able writer on the subject 1
that, if we had only Deuteronomy, we should never be able
to arrive at a knowledge of the sharp division of the tribe
of Levi into the superior and subordinate orders with which
the Levitical law makes us acquainted. But it does not
follow that the distinction is not there, and is not pre
supposed throughout.
(1) We do well, in the first place, to look with some
closeness into the phraseology on which so much — practically'
the whole case — is based. When this is done, we discover
that the phenomena are not quite so simple as the above
statement would suggest. The expression " the priests the
Levites," occurring in Deut. xvii. 9, 18, xviii. 1, xxiv. 8,
xxvii. 9 — not earlier in the book, — of itself, it will be
allowed, decides nothing: it means simply "the Levitical
priests." It is not found, indeed, in the Priestly Code ; but
as little is the other expression, "priests and Levites."
That is peculiar to the later books,2 and even in Chronicles
is sometimes interchanged with " the priests the Levites." 8
The Book of Joshua, likewise, has "the priests the
Levites":* never "priests and Levites." On the other
hand, the Priestly Writer occasionally uses "Levites," as
in Deuteronomy, to cover both priests and Levites : 6 this is
the case also in Chronicles.6 Finally, it is true that " sons
of Aaron" is not used in Deuteronomy to describe the
priests, though there is the recognition of the Aaronic high
priest. But it is very noticeable that, even in the Levitical
the late date of the book was argued for on the ground that it must have
taken a long time to bring this change about. The newer criticism gives
up the premises, but retains the conclusion.
1 Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce, p. 170. The theory of this writer is,
that the distinction existed, but in popular usage the name " priests " came
to be applied to all Levites, whether of the higher or lower grade (cf.
Dillmann on Deut. xviii. 1). The theory, while containing suggestive
elements, does not seem to us in this form tenable.
2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah ; once in 1 Kings viii. 4, where the parallel
passage in 2 Chron. v. 5 has "the priests the Levites."
8 2 Chron. v. 5 ; xxiii. 18 ; xxx. 27.
4 Josh. iii. ff. (or "priests" simply).
'E.g., Num. xxxv. 2, 6, 8 ; Josh. xiv. 4 ; xxi. 8 (cf. Van Hoonacker).
8 1 Chron. xvi. 4, 87 ; 2 Chron. xxix. 5 ff. In Malachi also (chap. iii. 8)
the priests are "the sons of Levi."

1 86 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
Code, "sons of Aaron" is by no means the only, or uni
versal, designation for the priests ; there are considerable
sections of the Code in which it either does not occur at
all, or occurs only sparingly.1 It is, moreover, chiefly in the
laws and narratives of the earlier part of the wilderness
sojourn that this usage is found ; it is not characteristic of
the later chapters of Numbers. Nor can this change from
a narrower to a more general designation, on the assumption
of the truth of the history, be regarded as strange. At first
the priests, " the sons of Aaron," stood out from the people
with sharp distinctness as alone invested with sacred office.
The case was greatly altered after the separation of the
tribe of Levi,2 when the designation " sons of Aaron " seems
to have been gradually dropped for another identifying the
priests more directly with their tribe.3 Priests and Levites
had more in common with each other than either class had
with the general body of the people; and, besides, the
priests were Levites. The rise of such a designation as " the
priests the Levites " is therefore quite natural, and the view
in Deuteronomy of the tribe of Levi as, collectively, a
priestly tribe, is entirely in keeping with the situation in
which the discourses are supposed to have been delivered.
To the popular eye, the tribe of Levi stood apart, forming,
as a whole, one sacred body, engaged in ministering in holy
things to God.
(2) It does not surprise us, then, to find in Deuteronomy
the functions of the priestly ministry — even to the " Urim and
Thummim," which was the peculiar prerogative of the high
priest — ascribed to the tribe of Levi as a whole.* The question
of real importance is — Does the book contain any indication of
such a distinction as we have nevertheless assumed to exist
between the different orders in this tribe, or does it exclude
such distinction ? We believe there is evidence of such dis
tinction ; the newer critics deny it.5 The question belongs
more properly to the discussion of Deuteronomy,6 but, in the
1 For details see Kittel, Hist. ofHebs. i. p. 120.
2 Num. i. 47 ff. ; iii. 5 ff. ; viii. 5 ff, etc.
' s After Numbers the phrase occurs only in Josh, xxi., where discrimina
tion is necessary in the appointment of the cities.
4 Deut. x. 8 ; xxxiii. 8.
8 Dillmann, Delitzsch, Kittel, etc., Van Hoonacker also from his own
point of view, hold that distinctions are not excluded.
6 See below, Chap. VIII

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 187
interest of the history, we may be permitted thus far to antici
pate. We would draw attention first, then, to the fact, that
in Deuteronomy the terms " priest" and " Levite " are, after
all, not quite synonymous. There are " the priests the
Levites," but there are also " Levites " who are not priests.
Even allowing them to be " possible " priests, though we do
not beheve this to be the meaning of the book, they have
still to be distinguished from those who, in the sense of the
writer, are actual priests. It is a perfectly unwarranted
assumption that, wherever the term Levite is used we
have a synonym for priest. A distinction is already in
dicated, and the fact of at least certain gradations within
the tribe established, by the statement in chap. x. 6 that
" Aaron died, and Eleazar his son ministered in the priest's
office in his stead."1 The clearest indication, however, is
in chap, xviii. 1-8, where an obvious distinction is made
between the " priest " serving at the sanctuary (vers. 3-5),
and the " Levite " not thus serving 2 (vers. 6-8) ; the only in
telligible reason for the more general designation being,
either that ordinary non-priestly Levites are meant, or at
least that they are intended to be included. It is a reading
into the text what is not there to assert that every
" Levite " going up to the sanctuary is a " possible " priest
in the stricter sense. This rules the meaning to be
attached to the opening sentence : " The priests the Levites,
all the tribe of Levi."8 The second designation includes
the first : in apposition it cannot be, since, in the writer's
sense, all Levites are not actual priests. To us it seems
most evident that when he speaks of "the priests the
Levites," he has a definite class in view, and by no means
the whole body of the tribe.* This view of the passage,
1 Cf. chap, xxxiii. 8. To what again can the separation in chap. x. 8
refer, If not to the setting apart of the sons of Aaron, and afterwards of
the whole tribe of Levi, recorded in the P sections of the history-J Critics
suppose an omitted narrative of this separation in JE (cf. Driver, Deut.
p. 121). 2 Thus, e.g., Dillmann, Num.-Jos., in loc. It is to be remembered that
it is only in the few passages above cited that priests are mentioned at all.
* Chap, xviii. 1.
4 Dr. Driver refers to the frequency of explanatory appositions . in
Deuteronomy, and gives examples (Deut. p. 214). The case seems rather
analogous to those in which the lawgiver expands his original statement by
enlarging additions; e.g., "Ye shall eat . . . ye and your household "
(chap. xii. 7); "Ye Bhall rejoice ... ye, and your sons, and your
daughters," etc. etc. (chap. xii. 12) ; cf. chap. xii. 18 ; xv. 11, etc.

1 88 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM—
we are aware, the critical school meets with a direct
negative, assigning as a reason that the terms used in
ver. 7 to describe the Levites' services ("to minister in
the name of Jehovah," "to stand before Jehovah") are
those regularly used of priestly duties. We beheve this is
far from being really the case ; but the question is a little
intricate, and had better be discussed apart.1
(3) A word may be said before leaving the subject on
the difficulty arising from the representations in Deuter
onomy of the dispersed and needy condition of the Levites.
The objection is urged that, instead of being furnished with
cities and pasturages, and enjoying an independent income
from tithes, as the Priestly Code provides, the Levites
appear in this book as homeless and dependent, wandering
from place to place, and glad to be invited, with the
stranger, the widow, and the fatherless, to share in
charitable feasts.2 Here, in the first place, it must be
remarked that the legal provision is not ignored, but is,
on the other hand, expressly alluded to in chap, xviii 1, 2
(cf. chap. x. 9), "And they shall have no inheritance among
their brethren; Jehovah is their inheritance, as He hath
spoken to them," where the reference seems unmistakable
to the law in Num. xviii. 20, 23, 24. Dillmann says :
" The corresponding ' law stands in Num. xviii" 3 But,
waiving this, may we not suggest that, if a time is sought
when these exhortations to care for the Levite would be
suitable, no time is so fit as that when they are supposed
to have been delivered, before the tithe-laws had come into
regular operation, — when in truth there was little or
nothing to tithe, — and when the Levites would be largely
dependent on the hospitahty of individuals. The Levites
were dependent then, and might from very obvious causes
1 See Appendix to Chapter — " Priests and Levites." Cf. also the case of
Samuel, considered below, pp. 189-90.
2 Deut. xii. 12, 19 ; xvi. 11, etc.
8 Num.- Jos., in loe. Dr. Driver argues against this on the ground that
in Num. xviii. 20 "the promise is made expressly to the priests (Aaron)
alone, as distinguished from the Levites (vers. 21-24), whose ' inheritance ' is
specified separately (ver. 24) ; here it is given to the whole tribe without
distinction " — Deut. p. 125 (on chap. x. 9). But surely it is obvious that the
whole passage in Numbers (xviii. 20-24) goes together, and that the
principal part of the "inheritance " of the priests is the tenth of the tithe
they are to receive from the Levites (ver. 26). Let the reader compare the
passages for himself.

II. RELIGION AND INSTITUTIONS 189
come to be dependent again. Their state would not be
greatly bettered in the unsettled times of the conquest.1
Nothing could be more appropriate in itself, better adapted
to create kindly sympathies between Levites and people,
or more likely to avert neglect of the tribe by the with
holding of their just dues, than the perpetuation of these
primitive hospitalities. It is to be remembered that no
tribunal existed to enforce payment of the tithes: all
depended on the conscientiousness of the individual payer.
It is easy to see that an income of this kind was in the
highest degree precarious, and that, in times of religious
declension, the body of the Levites would be reduced to
great straits. The Levites no doubt suffered severely in
the days of the Judges, and under bad kings ; under good
kings, like David, and Solomon, and Hezekiah, the order,
we may believe, experienced considerable revivals. At
other times it sank in the general corruption, and Levites
were content to earn a doubtful livelihood by irregular
ministrations at the "high places." There is no evidence
we know of that their condition in the later days of the
kingdom was so deplorably destitute as the critics represent.
(4) It will be seen later how little can be inferred from
the general silence of the history about the Levites ; 2 yet
that silence, as has already been hinted, is not altogether
unbroken.8 Two instances, at least, of mention occur in
1 Sam. vi 15, and 2 Sam. xv. 24 ; perhaps also the presence
of Levites may be inferred where Hophni and Phinehas are
spoken of as "with the ark of Jehovah."* A case of
special interest is that of the youthful Samuel, who is
described as "ministering unto," or "before" Jehovah at
Shiloh,6 though his duties were the subordinate ones
of the Levite.8 The words "ministered before Eli" also
show that this was his position.7 The attempt, on the
other hand, sometimes made to prove Samuel to be a priest
1 Cf. Konig, art. " Judges, "Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 816 : "Further, we see a
Levite wandering about, ready to settle down wherever he found office and
bread (Judg. xvii. 8 ff. ; xviii. 19 ff. ; xix. 1). This situation of the members
of the tribe of Levi was an actual one as long as a number of the Levitical
cities were not yet conquered [Konig accepts the historicity of these], such
as Gezer, and those remarks of the Book of Judges would have possessed no
probability if they had proceeded from a period when Jeroboam selected
priests from among the people at large," etc.
2 See below, Chap. IX. p. 304. 8 Cf. p. 163. 4 1 Sam. iv. 4.
8 1 Sam. ii. 11, 18 ; iii. 1. " 1 Sam. iii. 15. ' 1 Sam. iii. 1.

190 THE O.T. AS AFFECTED BY CRITICISM
(in contradiction of the law) from the mention of his
"linen ephod" and "little robe," must be regarded as
another instance of forcing the text.1 It is inexcusable
exaggeration when Professor W. R. Smith writes: "As a
child he ministers before Jehovah, wearing the ephod
which the law confines to the high priest, and not
only this, but the high priestly mantle (me'il)."* The
high priestly ephod, as every reference to it shows,8 was
something distinctive, and different from " the hnen ephod,"
which was worn by ordinary priests,* but not by them
exclusively.6 The me'il, or robe, again, was a long sleeve
less tunic, "worn," says Gesenius, "by women of rank
(2 Sam. xiii. 18), by men of rank and birth (Job i. 20;
ii. 12), by kings (1 Sam. xv. 27; xviii. 4; xxiv. 4, ll)"6
— therefore no peculiar property of the high priest. The
usurpation of high priestly or even of ordinary priestly
functions by Samuel is on a par with his sleeping in the
inner temple beside the sacred ark.
Note. — The Ark: In connection with the discussions,
pp. 137-38 and 161-65, the author would draw attention
to the searching Essay by Professor Lotz, of Erlangen, Die
Bundeslade (1901), which did not fall into his hands till this
chapter was printed. It lends valuable support to the
contentions in the text. See especially the discusssion of
the names of the ark (pp. 28 ff).
1 Thus Wellhausen, W. R. Smith, etc. Wellhausen's note should be
quoted: "House of God is never anything but the house of an image.
Outside the Priestly Code, ephod is the image ; ephod bad (the linen
ephod), the priestly garment." — Hist, of Israel, p. 130. Was Abiathar's
ephod then (p. 132) an image ?
2 O.T. in J. C, p. 270.
8 Cf. Ex. xxviii. 6 ; 1 Sam. ii. 28 ; xxiii. 6, 9 ; xxx. 7.
4 1 Sam. xxii. 18. It was not, however, a prescribed part of the dress.
8 2 Sam. vi. 14 6 Lexicon, in loc.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
Priests and Levites
Dr. Driver gives a reason for rejecting the view of the
relation of priests and Levites indicated in the text, which,
if it were valid, would be fatal; but which, as it stands,
seems to us, we confess, an example of that overstraining
which plays so large a part in these discussions. He writes :
"The terms used in [Deut. xviii.] 7 to describe the Levite
Ber vices are those used regularly of priestly duties. To
minister in the name, as xviii. 5 (of the priest ; cf. xvii. 12 ;
xxi. 5); to stand before — i.e., to wait on (see, e.g., 1 Kings
x. 8) — Jehovah, as Ezek. xliv. 15 ; Judg. xx. 28 ; cf. Deut.
xvii. 12; xviii. 5. (The Levites 'stand before' — i.e., wait
upon — the congregation, Num. xvi. 9; Ezek. xliv. 116. In
2 Chron. xxix. 11, priests are present; see v. 4)."1 We
should not, of course, presume to differ from Dr. Driver
on a question of philology or grammar; but this is a
question of palpable fact, and invites examination. Al]
Hebrew scholars, besides, are far from agreeing with Dr.
Driver in the above dicta. The statement made, we venture
to think, needs much qualification. It is not denied that
the terms employed are appropriate to priestly duties ; the
question is whether they are used of these duties " regularly "
and only. And this it is difficult to admit. The exact
phrase "to minister in the name" is, so far as we know,
found nowhere else than in vers. 5, 7, of this passage ; but
the verb itself, "minister" (shareth) is used constantly in
the law and in Chronicles of Levitical as well as of priestly
service.2 The Levites, we read, shall be appointed over
the tabernacle of the testimony, "and they shall minister
1 Introd. p. 83 (note) ; cf. W. R. Smith, 0. T. in J.C., p. 361.
2 Num. i. 50 ; iii. 6, 31 ; iv. 9, 12, 14 ; viii. 26 ; xvi. 9 ; xviii. 2 ;
1 Chron. xv. 2 ; xvi. 4, 37. 1S1

192 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
to it";1 aged Levites "shall minister with their brethren
in the tent of meeting,"2 but shall do no service; the
Levites " are chosen to carry the ark of God and to minister
unto Him for ever " ; 3 they " minister before the ark of the
covenant of Jehovah,"* etc. In fact, the only use of the word
" minister " in the Book of Numbers, if we are not mistaken,
is with reference to the service of the Levites.6 With this may
be compared Dr. Driver's own note in his Deuteronomy,
where the facts are stated more fully, but still, as we
think, onesidedly. " To minister," he there says, " is a less
distinctive term, being used not only of priests, but also
of Levites (Num. viii. 26), and other subordinate attendants,
as in 1 Sam. ii. 11, 18; iii 1 (of Samuel)."6 [We gather
from this that Dr. Driver does not adopt Wellhausen's
theory that Samuel was a "priest."] But then, what
becomes of its peculiar force in Deuteronomy ? For Samuel
also ministered "to Jehovah"; so in 1 Chron. xv. 2, etc.
It does not fare better with the expression " to stand before
Jehovah." Apart from the passage quoted, it is used in
Deuteronomy once of the tribe of Levi,7 and once of the
Levitical priest.8 In the Levitical law it does not occur at
all — a curious instance of " regularly." On the other hand,
in Chronicles, the Levites " stand every morning to thank
and praise Jehovah, and likewise at even,"9 and "priests
and Levites" are addressed together as "chosen to stand
before Jehovah." 10 In Nehemiah also " priests and Levites "
are spoken of together as those who " stood." n Can it be
claimed that the case is made out ? w
1 Num. i 50. 3 Num. viii. 26.
8 1 Chron. xv. 2. 4 1 Chron. xvi. 4, 37.
8 The note on the word as found in P in the Oxf. Hexateuch is : "Of
priests in the sanctuary, or of Levites attending on priests " (i. p. 216).
8 Deut. p. 123. 7 Deut. x. 8.
8 Deut. xvii. 12. • 1 Chron. xxiii. 30.
18 2 Chron. xxix. 11 ; of. xxxv. 6. _ Dr. Driver says that here "priests
are present." The important point is that Levites also are present, and
that both are addressed.
» Neh. xii. 44 (Heb.).
12 In Lev. ix. 5, and a few places in Deuteronomy (iv. 10 ; xix. 17, etc.),
" stand before Jehovah " is used of Israel generally. "To stand before the
congregation " (used of the Levites) occurs once (Num. xvi. 9 ; of. Ezek.
xliv. 11).

CHAPTER VII
difficulties ano perplexities of tbe Critical
Ibgpotbesis : ff. ttbe 5£ analysts

'J

" He His fabric of the Heavens
Hath left to their disputes ; perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model Heaven
And calculate the stars ; how they will wield
The mighty frame ; — how build, contrive
To save appearances ; — how gird the sphere
With cen trick and eccentrick scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb." — Milton.
"To base a determination of age on bare peculiarities of language,
especially in things that concern legal relations, in which the form of
expression is not arbitrarily employed by the writer, is precarious. When the
relationship of certain sections is assumed on perhaps insufficient criteria,
and then other sections" are added to them because of some similar lin
guistic phenomena, and from these again further and further conclusions are
drawn, one easily runs the risk of moving in a vicious circle." — Graf.
"The history of critical investigation has shown that far too much
weight has often been laid on agreement in the use of the divine names — so
much so that it has twice led the critics wrong. It is well therefore to
utter a warning against laying an exaggerated stress on this one phenomenon. "
—Kuenen.
"No intelligent observer, however, will deny that the work of investiga
tion has gone onwards, and not moved in a circle." — Delitzsoh.

1M

CHAPTER VII
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITI
CAL HYPOTHESIS : I. THE JE ANALYSIS
Thus far we have been content to proceed on the assumption
of the correctness of the ordinary critical analysis of docu
ments in the " Hexateuch," and, without challenging either
documents or dates, have endeavoured to show that, even
on this basis, the essential facts of the history, and the
outstanding features in the Biblical picture of the rehgion
and institutions of Israel, remain unaffected. We now take
a further step, and go on to inquire whether the critical
theory of documents, as usually presented, is valid, and,
if at all, how far. Here we part company with many,
of whose help, in defending the truth of supernatural revela
tion, we have hitherto gladly availed ourselves, but who,
we are compelled to think, have unnecessarily hampered
themselves, and weakened their contentions, by assent to
critical positions which are far from being solidly established.
We shall still seek, as far as may be, common ground with
these writers, and hope to show that, if we break with them,
our doubts are born, not from an obstinate wedding of the
mind to obsolete traditions, but from a sincere regard to
the facts, as we are constrained to apprehend them.
It is not uncommon to find the course of criticism
during the last century represented as purely a work of
unbelief, resulting in hopeless error and confusion. That,
however, is not altogether our opinion. If it cannot well
be denied that, as before stated, what is called "Higher
Criticism" was cradled in, and received its characteristic
"set" from the older rationalism,1 and if, unfortunately,
1 That this statement is not too strong may be seen from the names of
its founders as given in Cheyne and other writers. Cheyne himself censures
the early excesses of criticism. " In the previous age" (before Gesenius), he

196 DIFFICULTLES AND PERPLEXITIES:
this vice of its origin has clung to it, more or less, in all
its subsequent developments, it would be unreasonable not
to acknowledge that it is also, in large part, the product
of a genuinely scientific temper, and of a true perception
of phenomena which are there in Scripture, and, on any
theory, require explanation. Its course, too, has been
marked by a real and continuous advance in the appre
hension of these phenomena, and, with whatever mingling
of error, has tended to an ever closer definition of the
problem to be solved. A brief glance at the principal
stadia in the history of the development will illustrate
what we mean.
I. Stadia op the Critical Development
The chief stages in the development "of the critical
hypothesis have been the following: —
1. The beginning of the critical movement is usually
associated with the French physician Astruc,1 who, in his
Conjectures, in 1753, drew attention to the presence of
Elohistic and Jehovistic sections in Genesis, and on this
based his theory of the employment of distinct documents
in the composition of the book. The fact thus founded on
is a highly interesting one, and, once pointed out, cannot
be ignored. It is the case that some chapters, and portions
of chapters, in Genesis are marked by the use, exclusively
or predominatingly, of the divine name "Elohim" (God),
and others by a similar use of the divine name " Jehovah "
(E.T. Lokd).\ This distinction continues till Ex. vi.,
when God reveals Himself by His name Jehovah, then
(mainly) ceases. A considerable part of Genesis, accordingly,
can really, by the use of this criterion, be divided into
says, "there had been an epidemic of arbitrary emendation in the depart
ment of textual criticism, and a tendency (at any rate among some ' higher
critics ' of the Pentateuch and Isaiah) to break up the text into a number
of separate pieces, which threatened to open the door to unbounded caprice."
— Founders of Criticism, p. 63. [What will a future critic say of Dr.
Cheyne 3] The result is described by Tholuck in his inaugural lecture at
Halle in 1821 : " For the last twenty or thirty years the opinion has been
generally prevalent, that the study of the Old Testament for theologians,
as well as the devotional reading of it for the laity, is either entirely profit
less, or at least promises little advantage" (Ibid. p. 67).
1 One of the best accounts of Astruo is that by Dr. H. Osgood in The
Presbyterian and Reformed Review for January 1892. It shows that Astruc's
personal character was deeply marred by the vices of Frenoh society.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 197
Elohistic and Jehovistic sections.1 A fact to be placed
alongside of this, though its full bearings do not always
seem to be perceived, is that in the Psalter we have an
arrangement of psalms into Jehovistic and Elohistic groups
by a similar distinction in the use of the divine names.2
2. A further step was taken when Eichhorn (1779),8
to whom is due the name "Higher Criticism," and who
seems to have worked independently of Astruc, pointed out
that the Elohistic and Jehovistic sections in Genesis were
distinguished, not simply by the use of the divine names,
but by certain other literary peculiarities, which furnished
aid in their discrimination. The Elohistic sections in
particular — not all of them, as came afterwards to be seen —
were found to be characterised by a vocabulary and style
of their own, which enabled them, on the whole, to be
readily distinguished. This result also, whatever explana
tion may be offered of it, has stood the test of time, and
will not, we believe, be overturned. The long lists of words
and phrases customarily adduced as characteristic of the
Elohist (now P), need, indeed, much sifting,* but enough
remains to justify the critic in distinguishing a P hand in
Genesis, different from that of JE.6
3. It was at this point that De Wette struck in with his
thesis (1805-6) that Deuteronomy, shown by him to have
also a style and character of its own, could not have been
1 As examples of Elohistic sections in this sense, cf. Gen. i.— ii. 3 ; v. ;
xvii. ; xxiii. ; xxv. 7-17, etc. : in the story of the flood, vi. 9-22 ; vii. 11-
16 ; ix. 1-18, etc. As specimens of Jehovistic sections, cf. Gen. ii. 4-iv.;
xi. 1-9 ; xii.; xiii. (mainly) ; xviii., xix., eto., with the alternate sections
in the flood story.
2 The Psalter is divided into five Books, each concluding with a doxology
(Pss. xii. 13 ; lxxii. 18, 19 ; Ixxxix. 62 ; evi. 48). In the first three of
these books the psalms are grouped according to the predominant use of
the divine names : Book I. (i.-xli.), Jehovistic, ascribed to David ; Book II.
(xiii. -lxxii.), Elohistic, ascribed to sons of Korah, Asaph (one psalm), David ;
Book III. (lxxiii.-lxxxix.), Jehovistic, ascribed to Asaph, sons of Korah, etc.
The last two books are mainly Jehovistic. See below, pp. 277 ff., on these
groups of psalms, and their significance. For details, cf. W. B. Smith,
O.T. in J. C, pp. 195-96, etc.
8 Eichhorn was a rationalist of the Paulus type, giving a naturalistic
explanation of the miracles.
4 See below, pp. 336 ff.
8 Astruc and. Eichhorn did not carry the analysis beyond Genesis, though
Eichhorn suggests such extension (cf. De Wette, Introd. ii. p. 150). Both
regarded Moses (wholly or mainly) as the compiler. Their position may
be compared with that of Principal Cave in his Inspiration of the 0. T., who,
however, makes Moses also the probable author of both documents. '

198 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
composed earlier than the reign of Josiah. This he inferred
mainly from the law of the central sanctuary in Deut.
xii, and from the breaches of that law in the older history,
considered in last chapter. Westphal has declared that
" Deuteronomy is the Ariadne's thread in the labyrinth of
the historical problem of the Pentateuch," x and we are not
sure that we are not disposed to agree with him, if in a
sense different from what he intended. Meanwhile, as
was inevitable, the question arose as to whether the
Elohistic and Jehovistic documents did not extend beyond
Genesis into the remaining books of the Pentateuch, and,
further, into Joshua (Bleek, 1822), with which the earher
books are so closely connected. In this extension, the
criterion of the divine names failed,2 but the other linguistic
phenomena, and relations with acknowledged J and E
sections, were relied on to estabhsh the distinction. Thus,
mainly under the guidance of Bleek, Ewald (1831), and
Stahelin (1835),3 the criticism of the " Pentateuch " passed
definitely over into that of the " Hexateuch " — the
Pentateuch and Joshua.
4. The next step is connected with Hupfeld (1853), and
marks again a distinct advance. Ilgen (1798) had preluded
the discovery, but Hupfeld, with more success, drew
attention to the fact that the assumed Elohistic document
in Genesis was not all of one cast. Certain sections — all,
indeed, up to chap. xx. — had the well-marked characteristics
now attributed to P ; but other portions, agreeing in the
use of the name Elohim, were quite dissimilar in style,
and closely resembled the Jehovistic parts — were, in fact,
indistinguishable from the latter, save in the difference of
the divine names* Hupf eld's solution was that we have
here a document from a third writer — named by him the
2nd Elohist (E), who agreed with the older in the use of
1 Sources du Pent. ii. p. xxiv. De Wette, with most scholars of that age,
regarded the Elohistic document as the older, and partly on that ground
argued for the lateness of Deuteronomy (to give time for development).
Modern scholars, reversing the relations of age, yet hold by De Wette's
conclusion. 2 Colenso to the last (in published works) broke off the Elohistic narra
tive at Ex. vi. ; Cave, attributing it to Moses (or earlier writer), does the
same — a curious instance of extremes meeting.
8 Stahelin made important contributions in Stud, und Krit., 1835
and 1838.
4 Examples are Gen. xx. ; xxi. 6.-xxii. ; xxvi.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 199
the name Elohim, but whose style, vocabulary, and mode
of representation were akin to, and nearly identical with,
those of the Jehovist. This observation, again, in substance
corresponds with facts ; for it is the case that in the sections
in question there is little or nothing to distinguish the
Elohist from the Jehovist, beyond the use of the divine
names.1 A natural solution would seem to be that, despite
the difference in names, the documents are not really two,
but one ; 2 but modern critics generally adhere to Hupfeld's
distinction of J and E, and evolve a number of other
peculiarities which are thought to distinguish the two
writers. The theory had its disadvantages, which kept
many of the older scholars, e.g., Bleek, from assenting to
it; for, while explaining certain stylistic phenomena, it
destroyed, in dwing so, the previously boasted unity of the
Elohistic narrative,3 and created in the latter great and
unaccountable hiatuses: left in fact, as we shall see, only
a few fragments and lists for P after Gen. xxiii to the end
of the book ! *
5. The final stage in the development — if that can be
termed development which is more properly revolution —
outstrips in importance all the preceding. Hitherto, with
some little regarded exceptions,5 the universal assumption
had been that the Elohistic Writer, or 1st Elohist^was the
oldest of all, and his date was variously fixed in the time of
the Judges, or in the reigns of Saul or David. The order
was assumed to be : 1st Elohist — Jehovist and 2nd Elohist
— Deuteronomy. Then came the somersault of Graf, who,
in his Historical Books of the Old Testament, in 1866,
'Colenso, who only partially accepted Hupfeld's analysis, says: "The
style of the two writers is so very similar ,except in the use of the divine
names, that it is impossible to distinguish them by considerations of style
alone." — Pent. v. p. 59.
2 Colenso favours this solution for the parts he accepts of E : so
Elostermann. Cf. below, p. 218.
8 Cf. De Wette, Introd. ii. p. 77 ' "The Elohistic fragments form a whole
which can be reduced to a form almost perfect." (See below, pp. 333, 341.)
On the other hand, writers like Bleek (more recently Cave), who accept the
Elohistic narrative in its integrity, are in this dilemma, that they destroy
their own grounds for distinguishing the Elohist from the Jehovist. For it
has to be admitted that considerable sections of the Elohistic document are
in every respect of style (except the names) indistinguishable from the
Jehovistic. Those again who, like Colenso, in parts identify E with J, have
to own that the names are not an infallible criterion.
4 See below, pp. 341 ff. 6 See below, p. 204.

200 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
propounded the view,1 which he owed to Reuss,2 that the
legislation of the middle books of the Pentateuch (the
Levitical law) was not earher, but later, than Deuteronomy
— was, in fact, a product of the age of the exile. Graf,
however, was not yet of the opinion that all the Elohistic
sections of the Pentateuch were late: he accepted the
ordinary view that the Elohistic writing was the oldest for
the historical sections, but contended that the priestly laws
were a later, and post-exilian, insertion.8 Kuenen and
Riehm, from opposite sides, wrote to show that this was an
untenable position. History and laws go together, and
either the whole is early, or the whole is late* Graf before
his death acknowledged the force of Kuenen's arguments
for the late date of the (P) history as well as of the legis
lation,6 while not admitting that the P writing constituted
an independent document. Owing mainly to the powerful
advocacy of Wellhausen,6 the more thoroughgoing view has
prevailed, and, as formerly stated, it is now held to be one
of the "settled" results of criticism7 that the Priestly
element is the very latest constituent in the Hexateuch,
and is of exilian or post-exilian date. Yet in one respect
1 See above, p. 160. An earlier work in 1855, De templo Silonensi, pre
luded the idea of his chief work.
2 Cf. Kuenen, Hex. pp. xxxiv-v. Beuss's own work, L'Histoire Sainte et
la Loi, was published in 1879.
8 This also was Colenso's position in his published works, after he had
come round to Grafs standpoint (Pent. Pts. v. and vi.) — history early, laws
late. See below, p. 334.
4 Kuenen puts it thus: "Must the laws stand with the narratives, or
must the narratives fall with the laws ? I could not hesitate for a moment
in accepting the latter alternative." — Hex. p. xxii.
8 Ibid. pp. xxviii, xxx. Professor Robertson properly says : " To say
bluntly that the narratives must go with the laws, is no more a process of
criticism than to say that the laws must go with the history. It is therefore
inaccurate to describe the position of Graf as a conclusion of criticism. It
was simply a hypothesis to evade a difficulty in which criticism had landed
him."— Early Rel. pp. 418-19.
8 Wellhausen tells us : "I learned through Bitschl that Karl Heinrich
Graf placed the law later than the prophets ; and, almost without knowing
his reasons for the hypothesis, I was prepared to accept it." — Hist, of
Israel, p. 3.
7 Professor W. R. Smith names " Kuenen and Wellhausen as the men
whose acumen and research have carried this inquiry to a point where nothing
of importance for the historical study of the Old. Testament still remains
uncertain." — Rel. of Semites, p. vii. There can be "no doubt," says a
recent able writer, that " all this part of the Hexateuch is, in its present
form, post-exilic." — McFadyen, Mess, of Historians. See Note A on Self-
Confidence of Critics, p. 240.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 201
even this theory, which we shall have occasion to oppose
very decidedly, appears to us to mark an advance. In so far
as a documentary hypothesis is to be accepted at all — on
which after — it is difficult to resist the conviction that P
must be regarded as relatively later than JE, for whose
narratives, in Genesis at least, it furnishes the " framework," J
and that it is not, as former critics held, a separate older
work. In agreement with Graf,2 however, we do not suppose
that at any period it ever formed a separate, independent
writing. As supplementing this sketch of the chief stadia in the
critical development, a glance may be taken at the views
which have been held on the relation of the elements of the
Pentateuch in the course of this long history. These may
be roughly divided into the fragmentary, the supplementary,
and the documentary.
(1) At an early stage Vater (1805) and others developed
the idea that the Pentateuch was made up, not of continuous
documents, but of a great number of smaller fragments. This
view was vigorously contested, especially with respect to the
Book of Genesis, by Stahelin, Ewald (1823), Tuch (1838),
etc., as well as by the thoroughgoing defenders of the
Mosaic authorship, who, till the middle of the century,
formed an influential group.3 The fragmentist view was
regarded as overcome ; but it will be seen as we advance that
the newer criticism, with its multiplication of documents
(P1 P2 P3 etc.), its substitution of " schools " for individual
authors, and its minute tesselation of texts, represents
largely a return to it.*
(2) The theory which superseded the fragmentary was
that of an Elohistic groundwork, or fundamental document
(Grundschriff), supplemented at a later time by Jehovistic
additions. This was the view of Bleek, and of most of the
above-named writers : later representatives of it are Knobel,
1 Cf. Klostermann, Pentateuch, p. 10. On P as " framework," see below,
pp. 215, 340.
2 Graf adhered to this till his death, cf. Kuenen, Hex. p. xxx. See
below, Chap. X.
8 The best known names in this conservative school are those of Ranke,
Drechsler, Hengstenberg, Havernick, Keil.
4 For examples, of. text and notes in Oxford Hexateuch, which hardly
leaves a paragraph, verse, or even clause untouched.

202 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Schrader, and Colenso.1 It was a theory which, granting
its initial assumption, had much to recommend it. Its
advocates based on the fact that the Jehovistic narrative,
as it stands, is incomplete, and presupposes the Elohistic :
e.g., it has no command to build the ark (cf. Gen. vii. 1),
and contains no notices of the deaths of the patriarchs.
" It is still more unmistakable," argued Bleek, " that those
Elohistic portions in the first part of our book refer to one
another, presuppose one another, and follow one another
in due course, whilst they take no notice of the Jehovistic
passages lying between them." 2 Its opponents reply that it
is impossible that the Jehovist could have filled in passages
which, as they hold, are contradictory of the main narrative.8
Hupfeld's theory of the 2nd Elohist weakened this view,
and it fell to the ground altogether when the Graf theory
came to prevail, that P ( = the Elohist) was not the earliest,
but the latest, of the sources.
(3) The documentary hypothesis — earliest of all — after
wards revived by Hupfeld, rose again to favour, and since
Graf's time has generally been held in the form already
described, viz., JE and P as independent documents, which
have been combined with each other, and with Deuteronomy
(D), by a redactor, or series of redactors. So stated, the
theory seems simple : its enormous difficulties are only re
vealed when the attempt is made to work it out in detail.
We advance now to the consideration of these difficulties,
with a view to the attainment of a more positive result.
II. Difficulties of the Ceitical Hypothesis
in general
The course of criticism, we have granted, has been in
a very real sense onward, so far as the discovery of
phenomena is concerned. As the outcome, the critics are
justified in saying that on certain leading points there is
very general agreement in their ranks. It is agreed that
four main sources are to be distinguished in the Pentateuch
(or Hexateuch) — J E D P — and that these have been com-
1 Colenso maintained his supplementary theory to the close against
Hupfeld and Kuenen. See below, p. 334.
2 Introd. i. p. 275.
8 Of., e.g., Dillmann, Genesis, i. pp. 14, 15 ; Kuenen, Hex. p. 160.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 203
bined by one or more hands to form the present work. It
is also very generally beheved (not, however, by Dillmann),
that J and E were combined, if not before the time of
Deuteronomy (Kittel, Addis, and others think after), at
least before their final union with that book (D) and with
P. Beyond these very general results,1 however, it is, as
will immediately be seen, highly misleading to speak, as is
sometimes done, of unanimity. Agreement in main features
of the critical division there is, especially with regard to
P, — the original premises being granted, there is little
alternative, — hut whenever the attempt is made to carry
the analysis into details, or to estabhsh a consistent theory
of the relations of the documents, or of their mode of com
bination, divergences wide and deep reveal themselves, com
plications thicken at every step, and inevitable doubt arisen
as to the soundness of the premises which lead to such
perplexity in the results. Two unimpeachable witnesses
may be cited at the outset in general corroboration of what
is said as to the absence of unanimity. Kautzsch, the
author, with Socin, of one of the best typographical analyses
of the Book of Genesis, makes this remarkable statement :
" In the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, it is only with
regard to P that something approaching to unanimity has
been reached." 2 Kuenen, again, says with special reference
to JE : " As the analysis has been carried gradually further,
it has become increasingly evident that the critical question
is far more difficult and involved than was at first supposed,
and the solutions which seemed to have been secured have
been in whole or in part brought into question again."3
These words might be taken as the text of nearly everything
that follows.
1. With every allowance for what may be said of pro
gress, inevitable doubt is awakened in regard to the soundness
of the critical process by the conflicts of opinion which the
1 Westphal reduces the results on which there is agreement to three :
" (1) The existence, henceforth established, of four sources in the Pentateuch :
the 1st Elohist, or Priestly Code, the 2nd Elohist, the Jehovist, and the
Deuteronomist ; (2) the admission of the fact that each of these sources,
before its entrance into the composition of our Biblical books, existed as an
independent writing ; (3) the unanimity of scholars as to the manner in
which it is necessary to reconstruct, at least in their great lines, the four
sources indicated." — Sources du Pent. ii. p. xxvi. We shall see that even
this statement requires considerable modification.
2 Lit. of O.T., p. 226. ' Hex. p. 139.

204 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
history of criticism itself discovers. It is to be remembered,
in discussing this subject, that the J E D P of the critics —
so far as not simply symbols for the supposed documents
themselves — with their serial duplicates, to be immediately
referred to, and the numerous retinue of redactors, are,
though spoken of so familiarly, purely hypothetical entities
— postulated beings, of whom history or tradition knows
nothing. Moses, Joshua, Samuel, we know, or think we do ;
but these shadows have left no trace of themselves, save, if
it be so, in their work, now taken to pieces again by the
critics. When we desire to know something more of their
time or their relations, we are in a region in which, the
history of criticism being witness, the agreements are far
overborne by the disagreements. Do we ask when they
lived ? the dates assigned to P (the 1st Elohist), we have
found, range from the days of Samuel (Bleek, Colenso, older
writers generally), through the period of the kings (Riehm,
Dillmann, Noldeke, Schrader, etc.), to the time of the exile, or
later (Graf school). The dates of JE run from the time of the
Judges (Konig, Kohler, etc.) to the tenth, ninth, eighth cen
turies, with, in the view of Kuenen, " Judaean editions " after.
The composition of Deuteronomy is commonly placed in
the reign of Josiah, or of Manasseh ; but many able critics
(Dehtzsch, Oettli, Klostermann, etc.) hold it to be much
older, and in kernel Mosaic; while others divide it up,
and put extensive portions later than Josiah. Do we
inquire as to dependence ? The older view was, as we saw,
that J and E are supplementary to P ; the newer theory is
that P is later than JE and presupposes them. J is
held by many (Dillmann, Noldeke, Schrader, Kittel, etc.) to
be dependent on E and to have borrowed from him;
Wellhausen, Kuenen, Stade, etc., as confidently reverse the
relation, and make E dependent on J;1 others treat the
documents as practically independent (e.g., Woods).2 One
set of critics (Dillmann, Riehm, etc.) hold that the marks
demonstrate E to be about a century older than J ; the pre
vailing tendency at present is to make J about a century
older than E. Addis says that this question of priority " is
1 Wellhausen points out that E " has come down to us only in extracts
embodied in the Jehovist narrative," and appears to doubt its independence.
Hist, of Israel, pp. 7, 8. See below, p. 217.
2 Art. "Hexateuch" in Diet, of Bible.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 205
still one of the most vexed questions in the criticism of the
Hexateuch." 1 The interesting point in the discussion is the
cogency with which each critic refutes the reasonings of his
neighbours, and shows them to be nugatory. All this would
matter little, if it were, as is sometimes said, mere variation
on the surface, with slight bearing on the soundness of the
theory as a whole. But it is far from that. The criteria
which determine these judgments are found on inspection
to go deep into the substance of the theory, and afford
a valuable practical test of the principles by which it is
built up.2
2. These perplexities are slight, however, in comparison
with those arising from another cause now to be mentioned
— the excessive multiplication of sources. The matter is
relatively simple when we have to deal only with a J E D
or P, and when the critic honestly abides by these. But,
as the analysis proceeds, we find it impossible to stop
here. As the old Ptolemaic astronomer discovered that,
to explain the irregularities in the visible motions of the
heavenly bodies, he had to add epicycles to his original
cycles, then fresh epicycles to these, till his chart became
a huge maze of complications — and incredibilities ; so the
critic finds that the application of the same criteria
which guided him in the severance of his main documents,
necessitates, when pushed further, a continuance of the
process, and the splitting up of the documents into yet
minuter parts. Hence new divisions, and the gradual
resolution of the original JE, etc., into the nebulous series,
JW8; E^E3; piPT3?*; R^R8, etc., or equivalents;
all of which have now become part of the recognised
apparatus of the critical schools.3 Can we wonder that
1 Hex. i. p. lxxxi.
3 E.g., Driver says on the opposite views of Dillmann and Wellhausen
about J and E : "The difference turns in part upon a different conception of
the limits of J. Dillmann's 'J' embraces more than Wellhausen's 'J' . . .
Dillmann's date, c. 750, is assigned to J largely, on the ground of just those
passages which form no part of Wellhausen's J."—Introd. p. 123. Kittel,
again, upholding Dillmann's view, says : " When Wellhausen finds E to be
in closer contact than J with the specially prophetic spirit . . . this arises, at
any rate in part, from his altogether peculiar analysis of J; an analysis
which, again, is based on this character assigned to J by him." — Hist, of
Hebs. i. p. 80. Again : " Kuenen will not admit any reference (in Amos
and Hosea) to E, but only to J; Dillmann cannot see any acquaintance with
J, but only with E. I cannot assent to either view."— Ibid. p. 83.
8 Of. Oxford Hexateuch, or any of the text-books. As a popular book,

206 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
even a tolerably advanced critic like Dillmann should
write: "with a Q1Q2Q3 [= P], «PJV», E^E3 I can do
nothing, and can only see in them a hypothesis of per
plexity."1 Assume such multiples to have existed, does
anyone with a modicum of common sense beheve it possible
for a twentieth century critic to pick their handiwork to
pieces again, and assign to each his proper fragment of the
whole ? These processional Js and Es, however, should not
be scoffed at as arbitrary. They are really indispensable
parts of a critical stock-in-trade if the original principles of
the theory are to be consistently carried out. In that respect
they serve again as a test of the value of these principles.
The critic thinks he observes, for instance, within the limits
of the same document, a discrepancy, or a new turn of
expression, or a duplicate incident — the denial of a wife,
e.g., in Gen. xii xxvi, both in J,2 or a seeming intermingling
of two stories — in Korah's rebellion, e.g., in Num. xvi. 2-11,
p,s — or a reference in J (older writer) to E (younger) : what
is to be done except to assume that there is here a trace
of a distinct source, or of a redactor ? * The hypothesis
is as essential to the critic as his epicycle was to the
Ptolemaic star-gazer.
3. The matter becomes still more complicated when,
finally, the problematical J E D P lose all individuahty,
and are frankly transformed, as they are by most of the
newer writers, into schools.5 When these "schools" are
made to extend over a very long period, as from the
statements made, and the work attributed to them, we
must suppose them to have done, the problem of maintain
ing for them the identity of character and style with which
the investigation started becomes insoluble. Obviously, if
the writers are to be regarded as "schools," it will be
impossible, as before, to insist on minute criteria of language,
often descending to single words, and the finest nuances of
expression, as infallible means of distinguishing their several
see Bennett's Genesis, Introd. pp. 23, 32, 37, 52, etc. Kuenen has a P4,
with redactors (Hex. pp. 86 ff.).
1 Pref. to Exod.-Lev. s Cf. Oxford Hexateuch, ii. p. 19.
' Ibid. p. 212. Cf. Dillmann, in loc. See below, p. 358.
4 For a longer example, see Note B on Cornill's Decomposition of J, and
compare in full Cornill's EMeitung, pp. 52-53.
6 See Note C on the Views of J and E, etc., as "Schools." See also below
on T, Chap. X. p. 335.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 207
contributions. It is possible to argue, however unreasonably,
that an individual author must be rigidly bound down to one
style, one set of phrases, one idea or circle of ideas ; but this
will hardly apply to " schools," lasting for centuries, where,
within the limits of a general tradition, there must, with
difference of minds, inevitably be wide diversities of culture,
thought, and speech. We may properly speak, e.g., of an
"Anglican," a " Ritschlian," or a "Cobdenite" school, and
may mark how in each the influence of dominant ideas
stamps a general resemblance on the style and speech of
the members, but none the less individual idiosyncrasies
will assert themselves in each writer. If, further, the
writers are to be regarded as " schools," the question of
date assumes a new aspect. How far may or do these
"schools" go back? Why must J and E be any longer
forced down to the ninth or eighth century V'1 Why must
the priestly narratives be of the same age as the priestly
laws ? Delitzsch was of opinion that " the hterary activity
of the Elohistic pen reaches far back to ancient times nearly
approaching the time of Moses." 2 Why, on this hypothesis
should it not be so ?
There is, one cannot help feeling, something essentially
mechanical in this idea of " schools " of writers continuously
engaged for centuries in patching, revising, tesselating,
resetting, altering and embellishing, the work of their
predecessors. We are here back, in fact, by another
route, and under another name, to the old " fragmentary "
hypothesis, thought so long ago to have been exploded.3
But the striking thing about the labours of these manifold
unknowns is that the product shows so little trace of this
excessive fragmentariness of its origin. The Pentateuch —
pre-eminently the Book of Genesis, but even the legal part *
— is undeniably a well-planned, massively-compacted work.
Apart from the " firmly-knit " character of its story, it is
marked by a unity of thought and spirit, is pervaded by
1 Carpenter allows that the question of the date of J (so of the others)
has become "increasingly complex "'under the influence of this new idea
(Hex. i. p. 106).
2 Genesis, p. 49.
8 Carpenter says with reference to this newer theory of "schools":
"This was the truth that lay behind the fragment-hypothesis of the older
criticism : is it possible to re-state it in more suitable form ? " — Hex. i. p. 108.
4 See below, pp. 294, 325-26.

208 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
great ideas, is instinct with a living purpose, as no other
book is. Its organic character bespeaks for it a higher
origin than a concourse of literary atoms.1
III. Special Problems of JE: Place of Origin and
Extent
It is now necessary, in order that the value of the current
critical theories may be thoroughly tested, to investigate the
analysis and other questions connected with the different
documents more in detail ; and first we consider the problems
involved in the relations of J and E. These problems, in our
view, all converge ultimately into one — Are the critics right
in distinguishing two documents at all ? To set this question
in its proper hght, and reveal more clearly the serious
differences that emerge on fundamental points, it will be
advisable to look, first, at the views entertained as to the
place of origin of the assumed documents, and as to their
extent. Some hint of the range of these differences has
already been given.
1. Much hght is cast on critical procedure by observing
the methods employed to determine the place of origin of
the documents, with the implications as to their age. We
saw before that it has become customary to take for granted,
though without real proof,2 that J and E first originated, the
one (which one is in dispute) in the ninth century, the other
about the middle of the eighth century b.c. It is also very
generally held, and is confidently stated, that E was a native
of the Northern Kingdom, while J, probably, was a native
of the Southern, or Judaean Kingdom.8 The chief reasons
given for localising E in Ephraim are his peculiar interest
in the sacred places of Northern Israel (Bethel, Shechem,
etc.), his exaltation of the house of Joseph, and his preference
in the story of Joseph for Ephraim over Judah. How
shadowy and assumptive all this is, and how inadequate
as a ground of separation of the documents, will be evident
from the following considerations : —
(1) In the first place, there are eminent critics (e.g.,
1 See further in Chap. X.
2 See above, p. 73.
8 Cf. Dillmann, Driver ("relatively probable," Introd. p. 123), Adlis,
Carpenter, etc.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 209
Schrader, Reuss, Kuenen, Kautzsch), who place J also in
Northern Israel, and for precisely the same reason Of his
supposed interest in Ephraimitic shrines.1 The two writings,
therefore, it may be concluded, cannot really stand far
apart in this respect. Kautzsch, e.g., thinks it inconceivable
" that a Judahite, at a time when the temple of Solomon
was already in existence [note the assumption on date],
brought the sanctity of Shechem, Bethel, and Peniel into
the prominence they have at Gen. xiL 6, xxviii. 13 ff., and
xxxii. 30 ff." 2 Yet the Judsean origin of J is one of the
things which Dillmann, among others, regards as " demon
strable with certainty." 3
(2) In the next place, the whole reasoning proceeds on
the assumption that the writings are as late as the ninth or
eighth century, and that the motive for recording the move
ments and residences of the patriarchs is to glorify existing
sacred places, or exalt one branch of the divided kingdom
above the other. The naivete" of the narratives might save
them from this charge of "tendency," which has really
nothing tangible to support it. There is no trace of the
divided kingdom,* or of partiality for one side or the other,
in the patriarchal narratives. The history of Joseph is
recorded with fulness and freshness by both writers.
Gunkel takes strong ground on this point. "There can,"
he says, " be no talk of a party-tendency in the two collec
tions for the North or for the South Kingdom : they are too
faithful."6 Even Kuenen writes: "It would be incorrect
to say that the narratives in Genesis exalt Joseph at the
expense of his brothers, and are unfriendly to Judah. This
1 "The data," says Carpenter, "do not appear to be decisive, and each
possibility finds eminent advocates. . . . Critical judgment has consequently
been much divided." — Hex. i. pp. 104-5. Hommel also places J in Northern
Israel (Anc. Heb. Trad. pp. 289-90).
2 Lit. of O.T., p. 38. Kittel also thinks it " impossible to assert that J
originated in Northern Israel " (p. 85). Kautzsch and Kuenen explain
recalcitrant phenomena by the hypothesis of a later Judajan redaction
(which Kittel rejects, i. p. 85).
8 Genesis, p. 10.
4 Cf. Gunkel, Genesis, p. Ix, and see above, p. 111. The older writers
justly laid stress on this in evidence of date (e.g., Bleek, Introd. pp. 291 ff.,
298 ff.). It is curious how' little stress, for different reasons, critics are
disposed to lay on the one passage which might be regarded as an exception
 the reference to the subjection of Edom in Gen. xxvii. 40. De Wette
urged this as proof of a late date, but the inference is rejected by Bleek,
Kittel (i. p. 88), Kautzsch (Lit. p. 39), etc.
8 Genesis, p. Ix.
14

210 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
would contradict their ever present idea that all the tribes
have sprung from a single father, and on the strength of this
common descent are a single people. . . . Neither J nor E
takes sides with any one of the tribes, or specifically for
or against Joseph or Judah; for both alike occupy the
Israelitish position, in the widest sense of the word." x The
real reason why the sojournings of the patriarchs are
followed with such interest in J and E is simply that, in
the old Israelitish tradition, Hebron, Beersheba, Bethel,
Shechem, were believed to be the real spots where these
patriarchs dwelt, and built their altars.2
(3) When, further, we look into the narratives, we do
not find, in fact, that they bear out this idea of a special
favouritism in E for localities in the North, and in J for
places in the South. Addis remarks on J's " large-hearted
interest in the myths (?) and sacred places both of Northern
Israel and of Judah." 3 Abraham's home in J is at Hebron,
but his first altar is built near Bethel.* Latterly, in both
J and E, he lives at Beersheba (in South).6 Isaac also, in
both sources, hves at Beersheba. J narrates the vision of
Jacob at Bethel (with E),6 his wresthng with the angel at
Peniel,7 his residence at Shechem (with E and P),8 etc. E
also has his stories about Bethel, Shechem, and Beersheba,
but he records Jacob's residence in " the vale of Hebron "
(South),9 as, earlier, he had shared in the story of the offering
of Isaac on Mount Moriah.10 As little are we disposed to
1 Hex. pp. 230-32. He thinks he finds significance, however, in the fact
that Joseph was " crowned " of his brethren, etc.
2 " In weighing these accounts," says Kuenen, "for our present purpose,
we must remember that the writers were not free to choose whatever spots
they liked. Hebron was Abraham's 'territorial cradle,' and Beersheba
Isaac's. It needs no explanation or justification, therefore, when they
make the two patriarchs dwell respectively in these two places " ; but, he
adds, "we have to give some account of why Abraham is transplanted to
Beersheba." — Hex. p. 231. But why? if, as both J and E declare, he
actually went there ? The lives of Abraham and Isaac were mainly spent in
the South, that of Jacob in the middle of Palestine.
8 Hex. i. p. liv. 4 Gen. xii. 8. 8 Gen. xxi. 33 ; xxii. 19.
8 Gen. xxviii. 10 ff. 7 Gen. xxxii. 24 ff. 8 Gen. xxxiv.
9 Gen xxxvii. 14. Though it is clear from the context that Jacob's
home was not at Shechem (vers. 12, 13), yet simply on the ground that it
mentions Hebron, this verse is treated by Kuenen, with others, as an
interpolation (Hex. pp. 230, 231). Carpenter says flatly: "Of Hebron,
which belonged peculiarly to Judah, no notice is taken." — Hex. i.
p. 116. 10 Gen. xxii.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 211
trust the critic's " feeling " for an " Ephraimitic tinge " in E,
when we find, e.g., one authority on this " tinge " (Kautzsch)
declaring that "it [E] no longer conveys the impression
of a triumphant outlook on a glorious future, but rather
that of a retrospect on a bygone history, in which were
many gloomy experiences ; " 1 and another (Kittel) assuring
us that "the whole tone of E bears witness to a certain
satisfaction of the national consciousness, and joy over what
has been won." 2
(4) Finally, if anything were lacking to destroy our
confidence in this theory of tendencies of J and E, it would
be supplied by the interpretations that are given of particular
incidents in the narrative. It strains our faith to breaking-
point to be asked to believe that the interest of a prophetic
writer like E, of the days of Amos and Hosea, in Bethel and
Beersheba, arose from the fact that these places were the
then famous centres of (idolatrous) worship (cf. Amos
v. 5; viii. 14; Hos. iv. 15) ;8 or that Gen. xxviii. 22 is
intended to explain and sanction the custom of paying
tithes at the calf -shrine at Bethel;* or that Hebron was
preferred as Abraham's residence because it was "the
ancient Judgean capital" (Kittel),6 or had become "the
great Judaic sanctuary " (Driver).6 In the view of one set
of critics, Gen. xxxviii. is a bitter mockery of Judah (J
therefore is Northern) ; 7 according to another, it is a tribal
history written expressly to favour Judah (J therefore is
Southern).8 Kautzsch is of opinion that "at Ex. xxxii.
1 ff. there is in all probability a Judahite condemnation of
the Ephraimite bull- worship "; 9 others see in the. narrative
an Ephraimitic condemnation of the same practice; 10 Kuenen
thinks it glances at a claim of the Northern priests to a
1Lit. of O.T. , p. 44. 3Hist. ofHebs. i. p. 88.
8 Carpenter, Hex. i. p. 116 ; cf. Driver, Introd. p. 118.
4 Driver, ibid. p. 122 ; Dillmann, Kittel, Bennett, etc. See above, p. 185.
What of Js motive in the references to Bethel and Beersheba ?
8 Hist. i. p. 83. 8 Introd. p. 118.
7 Thus Reuss, Schrader, Renan, etc.
"Thus Kittel (i. p. 83), etc. Cf. Kuenen, Hex. p. 232; Westphal,
Sources, ii. p. 259 ; Carpenter, Hex. i. p. 105.
'Lit. ofO.T.,j>. 38.
10 Dillmann, who thinks a North Israelite could not have framed this
protest against Jeroboam's bull- worship (Exod.-Lev. p. 332). Kittel differs
(i. p. 89). It should be noticed that Kautzsch, Dillmann, Kittel, etc.,
ascribe the main story in Ex. xxxii. to J ; others, as Westphal, as
confidently give it to E.

212 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
descent from Aaron.1 So ad libitum. When one re
members that it is chiefly on the ground of these supposed
" mirrorings " of later events that the narratives are placed
where they are in date,2 one begins to see the precariousness
of this part of the critical structure. Thus far nothing has
been established as to place or time of origin, or distinct
authorship of the documents.
2. A second problem of much importance in its
bearings on the possibility of a critical distinction of J and
E is that of the extent of the supposed documents. The
consideration of Genesis may be reserved. There is agree
ment that the J narrative in Genesis begins with chap. ii.
36, and, in union with other sources, continues throughout
the book, and into Exodus. E, on the other hand, though
some find traces of its presence earlier,8 is understood to
enter clearly first in chap. xx. With Exodus iii., the
criterion of the divine names fails, after which it is allowed,
on all hands, that the discrimination is exceedingly difficult,
and often impossible. In the words of Addis, " In other
books of the Hexateuch [after Genesis] the Jahvist and
the Elohist are rather fused than pieced together, and
discrimination between the two documents is often im
possible." * In their union, however, it is commonly agreed
that the presence of the two documents can be traced, not
only through Exodus and Numbers (in small measure in
Deuteronomy) but through Joshua — that Joshua, in fact,
is an integral part of the total work now called the
" Hexateuch." The validity of this conclusion will occupy
us immediately. Beyond this rises another question, now keenly exercising
the minds of scholars, viz., whether there must not be
1 Hex. p. 245 ; cf. Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce, p. 136. See above,
p. 122. 2 Cf. Carpenter, Hex. i. p. 107 ; Kuenen, Hex. p. 226. See above,
p. 74 ; also Gunkel, Genesis, p. lxii.
8 See below, p. 217.
4 Hex. i. p. xxxi. McFadyen says similarly: "After Ex. vi. it is
seldom possible to distinguish with much confidence between the Jehovist
and the Elohist, as they have so much in common." — Mess, of Historians,
p. 18. The impossibility is owned by critics (as Kautzsch and Socin) in
considerable parts of Genesis as well. Strack says generally : " Since J and
E are on the whole (im Grossen wid Ganzen) similar to one another, it is
often no longer possible to separate what originally belongs to E and what
originally belongs to J." — Die Biicher Genesis, etc ("Handkommentar,"
i., ii.), Introd. p. xviii.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 213
recognised a still further continuation of these documents —
J and E — into the Books of Judges, Samuel, and even
Kings. Such a possibility was early hinted at,1 but the
newer tendency to resolve J and E into " schools " has led
to a revival of the idea,2 and to its adoption by many
critical scholars. Cornill and Budde have no doubt about
it; Moore adopts it in his Commentary on Judges;
Westphal goes so far as to make it a chief ground in his
determination of the dates of the documents.8 E.g.,
Cornill discerns J in 1 Kings "with perfect certainty";*
the traces of E, he thinks, are slight after the story of the
death of Saul. These conclusions, with good reason, do
not commend themselves to other scholars, so that the
camp remains here also divided.6 The hypothesis has a
value as showing the precarious grounds on which writers
often build their critical " certainties."
Returning to Joshua, we may briefly test the assertion
that the J and E documents are continued into this book,
and that Joshua forms with the Pentateuch a single larger
work. The question of "Pentateuch" or "Hexateuch"
need not be discussed at length; we touch on it only as
far as relates to our subject. Addis, however, speaks far
too strongly when he declares that the unity of Joshua
with the other five books "is acknowledged by all who
admit the composite character of the Pentateuch." 6 This
is by no means the case. Even Cornill says : " Many now
speak of a Hexateuch.. Joshua, nevertheless, presents an
essentially different literary physiognomy from that of the
Pentateuch, so that it appears to me more correct to treat
the latter by itself, and the Book of Joshua as an appendix
to it." 7 There are, in fact, tolerably strong indications of
a tendency among recent critics to separate Joshua again
from the Pentateuch, and regard it as a more or less
1 Gramberg (1830) ; Schrader (1869).
2 Cf. Westphal on the views of Ed. Meyer (1884) and Bruston (1885) in
Sources du Pent. ii. pp. 255 ff. Stade thought he discovered traces of E
in above works ; Bbhme traces of J, etc.
8 Sources, ii. p. 256.
* Einleitung, pp. 117, 121.
8 Kittel acutely criticised the theory in Stud, und Krit. 1891 (pp. 44 ff.) ;
cf. his Hist. ii. ^>p. 16 ff. Kuenen, Kautzsch (Lit. of O.T., pp. 27, 237-39).
Driver (Introd. pp. 171, 184), Konig, H. P. Smith (Samuel, p. xxii), etc.,
reject it.
8 Hex. pp. xiv, xxxi. T Einleit. p. 86.

214 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
independent work.1 For such a view also there are many
cogent grounds. Cornill gives as one reason that the
sources are quite differently worked up in the Book of
Joshua from what they are elsewhere. In the narrative
portions they are fused together so as to be ordinarily
inseparable. The language, too, presents peculiarities.
Even in the P parts, as will be seen immediately, it is
doubtful if the sections are from the same hand or hands
as in the other books. The book has, also, according to the
critics, been subjected to a Deuteronomic revision,2 which,
curiously, was not extended (or only slightly) to the earlier
books.8 It is beyond doubt, at least, that, in the separation of
the sources in Joshua, the critics continually find them
selves involved in inextricable difficulties. With respect
particularly to J and E, it has become not simply a
question of whether J and E can be severed (admittedly
they can not), but of whether J and E are present in the
book at all. Wellhausen came to the conclusion that J was
wholly absent,* and Steuernagel more recently has affirmed
the same opinion.6 "The original scope and significance
of E" are admitted by Carpenter to be "hardly less
difficult to determine."6 The high- water mark of his
1 Cf. the views of Wellhausen, Compos, d. Hex. pp. 116-17 ; Carpenter,
Hex. i. pp. 178-79 ; Bennett, Primer of Bible, p. 90 ; cf. his Joshua
("Polychrome Bible"), p. 44: "Perhaps the Joshua sections of JED and
P were separated from the preceding sections before the latter were
combined to form the Pentateuch " (or perhaps never formed part of them).
2 That is, if " revision " is the proper word, and not rather " invention."
If, e.g., the incident of the reading of the law on Mount Ebal in Josh. viii.
80-35 did not happen, it was simply invention on the basis of Deut. xxvii.
The Deuteronomic reviser is called D2 to distinguish him from the author
of Deuteronomy (D1). He belongs to the D "school," and writes a
similar style.
3 On supposed Deuteronomio traces in the earlier books, see below,
pp. 254-55.
4 Comp. d. Hex. p. 116. Kittel's view of the matter is : " The com
paratively few traces which point at all decisively to J frequently allow of
the assumption that they have no longer precisely the same form as when
they came from the author's pen. E is in almost the same case : of this
source, too, there are only a few remnants in the Book of Joshua." — Hist.
ofHebs. i. p. 263.
8 Carpenter notes that Steuernagel's Das Buch Josua invites comment,
"for his results vary very widely from those already set forth. ... In
regard to J, Steuernagel returns to the view of Wellhausen and Meyer that
it recognised no Joshua," etc. — Hex. ii. p. 318. Thus theories chase each
other like clouds in the sky.
9 Ibid. ii. p. 308.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 215
assurance is reached in the statement: "Budde, Kittel,
Albers, and Bennett have all concurred in believing that
the main elements of J and E are not disguised beyond
recognition, though their results do not always run side
by side." l The separation of the P sections in Joshua at
first sight seems easier, but in detail the difficulties are
nearly as insuperable, and of a kind that set theorising at
defiance. " The inquiry " (as to " the relation of the P
sections to the rest of the book "), Carpenter admits, " is full
of difficulty, and the seemingly conflicting facts have been
differently interpreted in different critical schools."2 The
language, as already said, is markedly different. " In chaps.
i.-xii., xxiii., xxiv.," says Professor Bennett, "there are
only a few short paragraphs and sentences in the style of
P, and most of these are rather due to an editor than
derived from the Priestly Code."8 Still more instructive
is the fact, pointed out by Professor G. A. Smith, that " in
the Book of Joshua P does not occupy the regulative
position, nor supply the framework, as it does in the
Pentateuch."* As Wellhausen puts it: "Without a pre
ceding history of the conquest, these [P] sections are quite
in the air: they cannot be taken as telling a continuous
story of their own, but presuppose the Jehovistic-
Deuteronomic work . . . We have already shown that
the Priestly Code in Joshua is simply the filling up of
the Jehovistic-Deuteronomic narrative."6 As interesting
illustrations of the stylistic perplexities, reference may be
made to the two important chapters — xxii. and xxiv. The
phraseology in chap. xxii. 9-34, " is in the main that of P,"
says Dr. Driver ("almost a cento of P's phrases," says
1 Hex. ii. p. 306 (italics ours).
2 Lbid. p. 315. E.g., " If xvi. 1-3 is rightly assigned to J, a probability
is established that it may have contained other geographical descriptions,
now perhaps absorbed into P's more detailed survey. But it appears to be
beyond the power of any critical method to discover the clues to their
separation" (pp. 307-8).
8 Primer, p. 90. The P sections, Carpenter says, "show several curious
features, and doubts have consequently been expressed concerning their
original character (e.g., by Wellhausen)." — Hex. i. p. 178.
4 Art. "Joshua" in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 784. Similarly Bennett says :
" In the Pentateuch P is used as framework ; in Joshua JED."— Book of
Joshua ("Polychrome Bible"), p. 45.
8 Hist, of Israel, pp. 357, 385. As shown later (Chap. X.), Wellhausen
regards the "main stock" of the Priestly narrative as ceasing with the
death of Moses.

216 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Carpenter), " but the narrative does not display throughout
the characteristic style of P, and in some parts of it there
occur expressions which are not those of P." He proceeds :
" Either a narrative of P has been combined with elements
from another source in a manner which makes it difficult to
effect a satisfactory analysis, or the whole is the work of
a distinct writer, whose phraseology is in part that of P,
but not entirely." l Wellhausen, on the other hand, thinks
it is P's wholly (but not the P of the earlier books). Addis,
with Kuenen, assumes that " it is a late production in the
school and after the manner of P."2 Chap, xxiv., in
turn, is assigned generally to E; yet, says Dr. Driver, "it
might almost be said to be written from a standpoint
approaching (in this respect) that of D2." 8 Addis
assumes a Deuteronomic revision, and abundant inter
polation.4 What, one is tempted to ask, can such criteria
avail? Not much support, we think it will be felt, is to be got
from the Book of Joshua for an original distinction of J and
E — if for their existence in that book at all. When it is
added that the Samaritans seem from the beginning to have
had, in Buhl's words, " outside of the Canon an independent
reproduction of the Book of Joshua,"6 it may be realised
that the reasons for affirming a " ifescateuch " are not so
conclusive as is generally assumed.
IV. Abe J and E two oe one? Difficulties of
Separation
The decisive grounds for the separation of J and E must
be sought for, if anywhere, in the Book of Genesis, where
the divine names are still distinguished. It is important
1 Introd. pp. 112-13. 8 Hex. ii. p. 473. » Introd. p. 116.
4 Hex. i. p. 233. It is a ourious observation of Carpenter's that "the
Deuteronomic editors of the national histories during the exile were con
temporary with the priestly schools of Ezekiel and his successors, and some
interchange of phraseology would be only natural " (this to account for
occasional appearances of P in D passages). — Hex. ii. p. 315. It is
interesting to see how the theory of JED and P schools extending into the
exile tends to work round to a theory of contemporary authorship for much
of the matter. But may not the same thing be assumed for early co-opera
tion in the production of the book ? See below, pp. 375-6.
8 Canon of O.T., p. 41. On the historicity of Joshua, see Appendix to
chapter.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 217
for the purpose of our inquiry here to remember how the
discrimination of J and E was originally brought about.
It will be recalled l that, till the time of Hupfeld, E was
commonly regarded as an integral part of P — a proof that,
notwithstanding their differences, even these documents are
not so far apart as many suppose.2 Then E was separated
from P on the ground of its greater literary affinities with
J, and, not unnaturally, in view of the difference in the
divine names, continued to be regarded as a distinct writing
from the latter. Now the question recurs — Is it really
distinct? The only actually weighty ground for the dis
tinction is the difference of usage in the names, and that
peculiarity must be considered by itself. Apart from this
it is our purpose to show that the strongest reasons speak
for the unity of the documents, while the hypothesis of
distinction is loaded with improbabilities which amount, in
the sum, well-nigh to impossibilities.
1. In the first place, then, there is no clear proof that E
ever did exist as a continuous independent document. It
has a broken, intermittent character, which excites doubts,
even in Wellhausen.8 Roughly, after Gen. xx.-xxi., where
the document is supposed abruptly to enter,* we have only
fragments till chap, xxxi., then again broken pieces till
1 See above, p. 196.
2 Bleek, Cave, Lange, Perowne, etc, retained the older view. An inter
esting series of equations might be drawn up along this line, based on the
axiom that things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another,
weakening somewhat the force of the ordinary documentary theory. If, e.g.,
E resembles P sufficiently to have been regarded by most critics till Hupfeld,
and by many since, as part of P, and E is at the same time practically indis
tinguishable stylistically from J, an obvious conclusion follows as to the
relations of J and P. So in other places approximations may be shown to
exist between E and D, D and J, and even between JE and P, D and P.
See below, pp. 253 ff.
8 Wellhausen says : " Not merely is the Elohist in his matter and in his
manner of looking at things most closely akin to the Jehovist ; his docu
ment has come down to us, as Noldeke was the first to perceive, only in
extracts embodied in the Jehovist narrative." And in a note : " What
Kuenen points out is, that certain elements assigned by me to the Elohist
are not fragments of a once independent whole, but interpolated and
parasitic additions. What effect this demonstration may have on the judg
ment we form of the Elohist himself is as yet uncertain." — Hist, of Israel,
pp. 7, 8.
4 Traces of E are thought by some to be found in chap. xv. (Wellhausen,
Dillmann, etc. ). Dillmann would attribute to E part of the material in chaps.
iv. (17 ff. ) ; vi. (1-4) and xiv. ; but he is not generally followed in this. Of.
Kuenen, Hex. p. 149.

218 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
chaps. xl.-xlii., in the life of Joseph, and a few portions there
after, chiefly in chaps, xiv. and l.1
2. Next, doubt, and more than doubt, is awakened by
the thoroughly parallel character of the narratives. As was
shown at an earher stage,2 the two supposed documents are
similar in character, largely parallel in matter, and, as
proved by their complete interfusion in many places,
must often have been nearly verbally identical. A few
testimonies on this important point may not be out of
place. " In the main," says Wellhausen, " JE is a composition
out of these two parallel books of history," adding, " We see
how uncommonly similar these two history books must have
been."8 " The two books," says Addis, " evidently proceeded in
parallel lines of narrative, and it is often hard — nay
impossible — to say whether a particular section of the
Hexateuch belongs to the Jahvist or the Elohist." * " Two
accounts of Joseph's history, closely parallel on the whole,
but discordant in important details (?) 6 have been mingled
together." 6
"It [JE]," says Kautzsch, "must have run in almost
unbroken parallelism with the Jahwist in the patriarchal
histories, the history of the Exodus, and of the conquest of
Canaan" 7
"In the history of the patriarchs," says Dillmann,
" especially in that of Jacob and Joseph, it [E] shows itself
most closely related to [J]; so much so that most of its
narratives from chap, xxvii onwards have their perfect
parallels in [J]." 8
After this, it does not surprise us that an able scholar
like Klostermann — at one time a supporter of the usual
critical hypothesis — was so impressed with the similar
character and close relation of these " throughout parallel "
narratives as to be led to break with the current theory
1 Colenso, so far as he accepted Hupfeld's E, did not regard it as independ
ent, but identified it with J. See above, p. 199.
2 See above, p. 71.
8 Comp. d. Hex. p. 22. It has already been seen that Wellhausen extends
this parallel, as regards matter, to P (Hist, of Israel, pp. 295, 318). Cf. above,
p. 107 ; but specially see below, pp. 344 ff.
4 Hex. p. liii. B See below, p. 237. 6 Hex. p xlix.
''Lit. of O.T. , p. 43.
8 Genesis, p. 11. In a similar strain Driver, KSnig, Strack, Gunkel, etc.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 219
altogether, and to recast his whole view of the origin of the
Pentateuch.1 3. Again, the marked stylistic resemblance of J and
E speaks strongly against their being regarded as
separate documents. On this point it may be sufficient at
present to quote Dr. Driver. " Indeed," he says, " styhstic
criteria alone would not generally suffice to distinguish J
and E ; though, when the distinction has been effected by
other means, slight differences of style appear to disclose
themselves."2 How slight they are will be afterwards
seen. 4. The force of these considerations is greatly enhanced
when we observe the intimate fusion and close interrelations
of the documents, and the impossibility of separating them
without complete disintegration of the narrative. The facts
here, as elsewhere, are not disputed.8 " The mutual relation
of J and E," Kuenen confesses, " is one of the most vexed
questions of the criticism of the Pentateuch." * " It must,"
he says again, "be admitted that the resemblance between
E and the narratives now united with it is sometimes
bewilderingly close, so that when the use of Elohim does
not put us on the track, we are almost at a loss for means
of carrying the analysis through."6 "There is much
difference of opinion," acknowledges Addis, " on the contents
of J and E considered separately: the problem becomes
more difficult when we pass beyond Genesis to the later
books of the Hexateuch, and to a great extent the problem
may prove insoluble." 6 The close interrelation of the
several narratives is not less perplexing. This interrela
tion appears all through — e.g., the very first words of Gen.
xx., "And Abraham journeyed from thence," connect with the
preceding narrative ; the difficulties of chap. xxi. 1-7 (birth
of Isaac), in which J, E, and P are concerned, can only be
got over by the assumption that "all three sources, J, E,
1 Cf. his Der Pentateuch, pp. 10, 52-53. On Klostermann, see further
below, pp. 227-29, 345.
3 Introd. p. 126 ; cf. p. 13: "Other phraseological criteria (besides the
names) are slight." Cf. Colenso, quoted above, p.199 ; and Hupfeld, below,
p. 234. Dr. Driver himself speaks on the duality of the documents with con
siderable reserve, though ' ' he must own that he has always risen from the
study of JE with the conviction that it is composite " (p. 116).
8 The notes tq Kautzsch an(j Socin's analysis of Genesis are here very
instructive. 4 Hex. p. 64, ¦ DM. p. 144. 8 Hex. p. xxxiv.

220 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITLES :
and P seem to have contained the account of the birth
of Isaac " 2 — but it is at its maximum in the history of
Joseph.2 Illustrations will occur as we proceed.8 The usual
way of dealing with these difficulties is by assuming that
sections in J parallel to E, and sections in E parallel to J,
once existed (so of P), but were omitted in the combined
work. This, if established, would immensely strengthen the
proof of parallelism — would, in fact, practically do away with
the necessity for assuming the existence of two histories ; but
the hypothesis, to the extent required, is incapable of proof,
and its assumption only complicates further an already too
complicated problem.*
5. Finally, the argument for unity is confirmed by the
violent expedients which are found necessary to make the
opposite hypothesis workable. We have specially in view
here the place given, and the functions ascribed, to that
convenient, but most unsatisfactory, appendage of the critical
theory — the Bedactor. The behaviour of this remark
able individual — or series of individuals (R1, R2, R3, etc.) —
is one of the most puzzling features in the whole case. At
times he (R) puts his sections side by side, or alternates
them, with little alteration; again he weaves them
together into the most complicated literary webs ; yet again
he "works them up" till the separate existence of the
documents is lost in the blend.6 At one time, as Kloster-
mann says, he shows an almost " demonic art " 6 in com
bining and relating; at another, an incapacity verging on
imbecility. At one moment he is phenomenally alert in
smoothing out difficulties, correcting mistakes, and inter
polating harmonistic clauses; at another, he leaves the
most glaring contradictions, in the critics' view, to stand
1 Oxf. Hex. ii. p. 29 ; see below, p. 352.
2 Cf. Addis and Dillmann above.
8 Of., e.g., on the analysis of Gen. xxii. and Gen. xxviii. 10. ff,, below,
pp. 234-35.
4 Cf. below, Chap. X. pp. 343, 348-9, 362.
8 It is customary to speak of the Hebrew writers as if they were
scrupulously careful simply to reproduce the material at their disposal —
combining, re-arranging, but not re-writing. That, if the critics are right,
can only be accepted with much qualification. P, on Wellhausen's theory,
must have re- written the history. According to Kuenen, the "legends"
have " been worked up in one way by one writer and another by another
... so often as to be notably modified, or even completely transformed,—
Hex. p. 88 (on the process in Joshua, cf. p. 158).
8 Pentateuch, p. 36.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 221
side by side. Now he copies J's style, now D's, now P's.1
A serviceable, but somewhat unaccountable personage I
V. The Problem of the Divine Names in J and E
The crux of the question of the distinction of documents
lies, it will be admitted, in the use of the divine names in
Genesis, and this problem, so far as it concerns J and E—
P stands on a somewhat different basis 2 — must now
seriously engage our attention.
1. The first thing to be done is to ascertain the facts,
and here, once more, we believe, it will be found that
the case is not quite so simple as it is ordinarily represented
to be. The broad statement is not to be questioned that
there are certain sections in the narrative attributed to
JE in which the divine name "Jehovah" is preponder-
atingly used, and certain other sections in which the name
" Elohim " (God) is chiefly used. It is this which constitutes
the problem. We must beware, however, of exaggeration
even here. When, e.g., Dr. Driver says that in the
narrative, Gen. xii. 10-20, " the term Jehovah is uniformly
employed," 3 it would not readily occur to the reader that
" uniformly " in this instance means only once. The truth
is, as we soon discover, that no absolute rule about the use of
the names can be laid down. Even eliminating those
instances in which the " redactor " is invoked to interpolate
and alter, there remains a not inconsiderable number of cases
to show that the presence of the divine names is not an
infallible test. Kuenen himself says — and the admission
is striking — " The history of critical investigation has shown
that far too much weight has often been laid on agreement
in the use of the divine nameB [it is the pillar of the whole
hypothesis]. ... It is well, therefore, to utter a warning
against laying an exaggerated stress on this one
phenomenon." * There are grounds for this warning.
(1) There can be no doubt whatever that the name
"Elohim" is sometimes found in J passages. In the
narrative of the temptation in Gen. hi. (J), e.g., the name
1 Cf. Dillmann, Genesis, p. 21 : "The redactor R often writes the language
of A [=P]," etc. See later on " imitations " of D, P, etc.
2 See below, p. 226. 8 Introd. p. 13 ; Genesis, p. xi.
4 Hex. p. 61.

222 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
" Jehovah " is not put into the mouth of the serpent, but,
instead, the name "Elohim":1 "Yea, hath Elohim said,"
etc. Similarly, in the story of Hagar's flight (J), the hand
maid is made to say : " Thou Elohim seest me." 2 In such
cases one can easily see that a principle is involved. In
the story of the wresthng at Peniel, again, in Gen. xxxii.
(J), we have "Elohim" in vers. 28, 29. In the life of
Joseph, Gen. xxxix. is assigned by Dillmann, Kuenen,
Kautzsch, and most to J (as against Wellhausen), despite
its "linguistic suggestions" of E, and the occurrence of
" Elohim " in ver. 9 ; and Kuenen writes of other passages :
" Elohim in chaps, xliii. 29, xliv. 16, is no evidence for E,
since Joseph speaks and is spoken to as a heathen until
chap, xiv." 3
(2) Examples of the converse case of the use of Jehovah
by E are not so numerous, but such occasionally occur.
Addis, indeed, says roundly: "The Elohist . . . always
speaks of Elohim and never of Yahweh, till he relates
the theophany in the burning bush."* But Dr. Driver
states the facts more cautiously and correctly. "E," he
says, "prefers God (though not exclusively), and Angel of
God, where J prefers Jehovah and Angel of Jehovah." s
E.g., in Gen. xxii. 1-14 (E) " Angel of Jehovah " occurs in
ver. 11, and "Jehovah" twice in ver. 14. Similarly, in
Gen. xxviii 17-22 (E), Jacob says: "Then shall Jehovah
be my God." 6 When the use of the divine names is taken
from the former exclusive ground, and reduced to a " pre
ference," it is obvious that new possibilities are opened.
We ask that it be noted further that isolated Elohistic
sections occur after Ex. iii.,7 e.g., in Ex. xiii. 17-19, xviii.
— a singular fact to be afterwards considered.
(3) We would call attention, lastly, to the lengths
which criticism is prepared to go in acknowledging the
principle of discrimination in the use of the divine names.
Kuenen, with his usual candour from his own point of
1 Gen. iii. 1, 3, 5. 2 Gen. xvi. 13.
8 Hex. pp. 145-46. 4 Hex. i. p. liv. Thus most critics.
8 Genesis, p. xiii. Cf. Introd. p. 13.
8 Ver. 21. A redactor is here brought in, as elsewhere, but unwarrant
ably. What caprice should lead a redactor to change these particulai
expressions, when so many others are left untouched ?
7 But note the use of "Jehovah " in this chapter before the revelation
(vers. 2, 4).

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 223
view, allows to this principle considerable scope. " The
original distinction between Jahwe and Elohim," he says,
" very often accounts for the use of one of these appellations
in preference to the other."1 (Dr. Driver allows it
"only in a comparatively small number of instances.")2
He gives in illustration the following cases. "When the
God of Israel is placed over against the gods of the heathen,
the former is naturally described by the proper name
Jahwe (Ex. xii. 12; xv. 11; xviii. 11). When heathens
are introduced as speaking, they use the word Elohim
(Gen. xii. 39). ... So, too, the Israelites, when speaking
to heathens, often use Elohim, as Joseph does, .for instance,
to Potiphar's wife, Gen. xxxix. 9 ; to the butler and baker,
Gen. xl. 8 ; and to Pharaoh, Gen. xii. 16, 25, 28, 32 (but
also in vers. 51, 52, which makes us suspect that there
may be some other reason for the preference of Elohim);
so, too, Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xx. 13 (where Elohim
even takes the plural construction).' Where a contrast
between the divine and the human is in the mind of the
author, Elohim is at anyrate the more suitable word
(e.g., Gen. iv. 25 ; xxxii. 28 ; Ex. viii. 15 ; xxxii. 16, etc.)."3
2. What now, we go on to inquire, is the explanation of
these phenomena ?
(1) We have already seen the difficulties which attend
the critical solution of distinct sources in the case of docu
ments so markedly similar and closely related as J and E.
There can be no objection, indeed, to the assumption
of the use by the writer of Genesis of an older source,
or older sources, for the hves of the patriarchs; such,
in our opinion, must have been there. But such source,
or sources, would, if used, underlie both J and E sections,
while the general similarity of style in the narratives shows
that, in any case, older records were not simply copied.
It may be further pointed out that the supposition of two
or more documents (JEP, etc.), combined by a redactor,
does not in reahty relieve, the difficulty. We have still
to ask — On what principle did the redactor work in the
selection of his material? What moved him, out of the
several (parallel) narratives at his disposal, here to choose
J, there to choose E, in another place to choose P, at other
times to weave in stray sentences or clauses from this
1 Hex. p. 56. 2 Introd. p. 13. s Hex. pp. 58-59.

224 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
or that writing ? Did he act from mere caprice ? If he
did not, the difficulty of the names seems only shifted
back from the original authors to the compiler.
(2) Shall we then say, sustaining ourselves on such
admissions as those of Kuenen above, that the alternation
of names in JE narratives in Genesis is due to the fact
that these names are always used discriminatively ? This
has been the favourite view of writers of a conservative
tendency,1 and there is assuredly a deep truth underlying it,
though we do not think it can be carried through to the full
extent that these writers desire. It is the case, and is gener
ally admitted, that there is a difference of meaning in the two
names of God, — " Elohim and Jahweh," as Dr. Driver puts
it, "represent the divine nature under different aspects,
viz., as the God of nature and the God of revelation re
spectively," 2 — and it will also be allowed that to some extent
this is the principle governing their selection in particular
passages. But is it the principle of distinction throughout ?
In this connection it is necessary to consider the
important fact, on which the critics rightly lay much stress,
that in the case of E the distinction in the use of the divine
names ceases (not wholly, as we saw, but generally) with the
revelation in Ex. iii. What does this fact mean? The
critical answer is simple : a new name of God — the name
Jehovah — is here revealed, and with the revelation of the
new name the use of the older name is discontinued. This
explanation, however, as a little reflection shows, is not
quite so satisfactory as it seems. For, first, it is not a
distinction between E and J that the one knows of a
revelation of God to Moses by His name Jehovah, and
the other does not. Both, as we find, are aware of, and
describe in nearly the same terms, the commission to Moses.
In both Moses was to tell the children of Israel that
"Jehovah, the God of [their] fathers" had sent him, Ex.
iii 15 (E); 16 (J); iv. 5 (J). And, second, while it is E
who records the words of revelation "I Am that I Am"
(ver. 14), it is not E, but P, who later has the declaration :
"I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob,
as El-Shaddai, but by My name Jehovah I was not known
to them."8 There is thus no indication that E regarded
1 E.g., Hengstenberg, Keil, Green, Rupprecht, etc.
• Introd. p. 13. 8 Ex. vi. 8.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 225
the revelation to Moses in any other light than J did:1
therefore, no apparent reason why E, any more than J,
should draw in his narrative so sharp a distinction between
the period before and that after the revelation in Exodus.
Nor, in fact, did he ; for we have seen that Elohistic sections
are found later in the book, and many able critics hold the
view that originally the E document had this name Elohim
till its close.2
The general sense of the revelation to Moses is evidently
the same in all the three supposed sources, and this helps
us in determining the meaning of the words above quoted
from P — " By My name Jehovah I was not known to them."
Do these words mean, as most critics aver, that the name
Jehovah was up to that time absolutely unknown? Was
the revelation merely a question of a new vocable ? Or, in
consonance with the pregnant Scriptural use of the word
" name," — in harmony also with the declarations of J and
E that the God who speaks is " Jehovah, the God of your
fathers,"3 — is the meaning not, as many have contended,
that the God who in earher times had revealed Himself in
deeds of power and mercy as El Shaddai, would now reveal
Himself, in the deliverance of Israel, in accordance with
the grander character and attributes implied in His name
Jehovah — the ever-abiding, changeless, covenant-keeping
One ? * For ourselves we have no doubt that, as this is the
deeper, so it is the truer view of the revelation ; any other
we have always felt to be a superficialising of it.6
There is, therefore, good ground for laying stress on the
distinction of meaning in the divine names. This, probably,
1 E, in point of fact does, as we saw, occasionally use "Jehovah" in Genesis.
2Cf., e.g., Dillmann, Num.-Jos. p. 617; Addis, Hex. i. p. liv. See
below, p. 226.
8 That the name Jehovah was probably really older, as J, certainly, and
probably both J and E, assume, is shown in Note B to Chap. V. above.
4 The "name" denotes in general the revelation-side of God's being.
Jehovah, as we understand it, denotes the God of the Covenant as the One
who remains eternally one with Himself in all that He is and does : the
Self- Existent and therefore the Self-Consistent One. Kautzsch takes the name
as meaning the "eternal and constant." — Did. of Bible (Extra Vol.), p. 625.
8 It is interesting to notice that Colenso, who at first tenaciously resisted
this view, came round latterly to regard it as admissible — even suggests it
as an explanation of how J might use the sacred name in Genesis without a
sense of discrepancy with P. "Whereas," he says, "if it means (as some
explain it) that it [the name Jehovah] was not fully understood or realised,
the contradiction in terms would disappear altogether," etc. — Pent. vi.
pp. 582-83.

226 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
— so far we go with the critics, — is the real reason of the
predominating usage in the P parts prior to Ex. vi. The
usage in this writing is ruled by the contrast of two stages
of revelation, which the writer desires to emphasise. Still
we think that, while this explanation of discriminative use
is perhaps not impossible for JE, and often has real place,1
it is highly improbable that the same author should designedly
change the name in so marked a fashion through whole
chapters, as is done in this narrative, without more obvious
reason than generally presents itself. Only, as formerly
remarked, the critics themselves cannot wholly get away
from this difficulty. If not the author, then the redactor,
must have had some principle to guide him in choosing,
now a Jehovistic, now an Elohistic section. He is too
skilful a person to have worked at random ; the distinction
of names in his documents must have been as obvious to
him as to us ; he is supposed to have often changed the
names to make them suit his context ; it is difficult, therefore,
to think that he had not some principle or theory to guide him.
3. This leads to another, and very important question —
Is it so certain that in the case of JE there has been no
change in the names ? The question is not so uncalled for
as it may seem. We do not need to fall back on the redactor
of the critics to recognise that the Pentateuch has a history
— that, like other books of the Bible, it has undergone a
good deal of revision, and that sometimes this revision has
left pretty deep traces upon the text. The differences in
the Hebrew, Samaritan, and LXX numbers in Gen. v. and
xi. are a familiar example. But in the use of the divine
names also suggestive facts present themselves. It has
been mentioned above as the conjecture of certain critics
that the E document had originally " Elohim " till its close,
and was designedly changed to " Jehovah " after Ex. iii.
(but why then not wholly ?). A plainer example is in Gen.
ii.-iii. (J), where the two names are conjoined in the form
"Jehovah Elohim" (Lord God). It is generally allowed
that this is not the original form of writing,2 and that the
1 As in Gen. iii. above, p. 222. Cf. also below, pp. 234-35. As analogous,
the usage in the prologue and close of the Book of Job may be compared
with that in the body of the book.
2 Gunkel, however, following Budde, actually thinks that we have here
also the working together of two stories of Paradise — an Elohistio and a
Jehovistic. — Genesis, p. 4.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 227
»
names are intentionally combined to show the identity of
the " Elohim " of chap. i. (P) with the " Jehovah " of the
subsequent narratives. If we may believe Klostermann,
the ancient Hebrews could never have used in speech such
a combination as "Jehovah Elohim," and would read
here simply "Elohim."1 The LXX is specially instructive
on this point, for it frequently reads " God " simply (chap. ii.
5, 7, 9, 19, 21), where the Hebrew has the double name.
So in chap. iv. 1, for " I have gotten a man by the help of
Jehovah," the LXX reads "God" (conversely in ver. 25,
for "God" in the Hebrew it reads "Lord God"); and in
ver. 26, for "call on Jehovah," it has "Lord God." This
raises the question, more easily asked than answered — Did
this combination of the names stop originally with chap. iii. ?
Or if not, how far did it go ? The LXX certainly carried
it a good way further than our present text — at least to the
end of the story of the flood.2
There is, however, yet another class of phenomena bear
ing closely on our subject — which has, in fact, furnished
Klostermann with the suggestion of a possible solution of
our problem well deserving of consideration. We refer to
the remarkable distribution of the divine names in the
Book of Psalms. It was before pointed out that in the first
three of the five Books into which the Psalter is divided,
the psalms are systematically arranged into Jehovistic
and Elohistic groups: Book I. is Jehovistic (Davidic);
Book II., Elohistic (sons of Korah, Asaph, David) ; Book III.,
Jehovistic (sons of Korah, etc.).3 Here, then, in the
Pentateuch and in the Psalter are two sets of phenomena
sufficiently similar to suggest the probability of a common
cause. What is the explanation in the case of the psalms ?
Is it, as Colenso thought, that David wrote Elohistic psalms
1 Pentateuch, p. 37. "Only in the temple, according to Jacob (Zeit. d.
Alttest. Wissenschaft, 1896, p. 158), was the sacred name JHVH pronounced. "
— Kirkpatrick, Psalms, p. 57.
2 The compound expressions "Jehovah, God of Shem " (Abraham, etc.),
Gen. ix. 26 ; xxiv., etc., also deserve consideration. Is it, besides, certain
that the divine names in the oldest script were always written in full, or
as words, and not represented by a sign ? Dillmann, it may be observed,
thinks that, conversely, Elohim in E is frequently changed into Jehovah
(Num.-Jos. p. 52), a statement which proves rather the uncertainty of his
hypothesis than the necessity of the change.
8 Cf. above, p. 197. For details see W. K. Smith, loc. cit. ; Kirkpatrick,
The Psalms, pp. Iv ff., etc.

228 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
«
at one period of his life, and Jehovistic psalms at another ?
Few critics at the present day would accept this solution ;
besides, it does not explain the phenomena of the other
groups. The real key, it is generally allowed, is furnished
in the fact that, in a few cases, the same psalms (or parts of
psalms) appear in different groups — in one form Jehovistic,
in the other Elohistic. Thus Ps. ihi is an Elohistic re
cension of the Jehovistic Ps. xiv.; Ps. lxx. is an Elohistic
recension of the Jehovistic Ps. xl. 13-17 (in the remaining
case, Ps. cviii = Ps. lvii. 7-11, and lx. 5-12, both versions
are Elohistic). As the psalmist cannot well be supposed
to have written the psalm in both forms, it is clear that in
one or other of the versions the name has been designedly
changed. This also is the nearly unanimous opinion of
modern scholars.1 Facts show that there was a time, or
were times, in the history of Israel, when in certain circles
there was a shrinking from the use of the sacred name
Jehovah,2 and when, in speech, the name "Elohim" or
" Adonai " 3 was substituted for it. Not only was the name
changed in reading, but versions of the psalms apparently
were produced for use with the name written as it was to be
read — that is, with Elohim substituted for Jehovah.*
Klostermann's suggestion, in brief, is that precisely the
same thing happened with the old Jehovistic history-book
of Israel, which corresponds with what we call JE. There
was an Elohistic version of this work in circulation along
side of the original Jehovistic — a recension in which the
divine name was written " Elohim," at least up to Ex. hi.,
and possibly all through. When the final editing of the
Pentateuch took place, texts of both recensions were
employed, and sections taken from one or the other as was
thought most suitable.6 In other words, for the J and E
]Cf. W. B. Smith, O.T. in J. C, p. 119; Driver, Introd. p. 372;
Kirkpatrick, Psalms, as above, Library of O.T., p. 39; Klostermann,
Pentateuch, p. 36 ; Konig, Hauptprobleme, p. 28, etc.
2Cf.,e.o\, Ecclesiastes, and the preference for "Elohim" in Chronicles.
"The compiler of Chronicles," says Driver, "changes conversely Jehovah
of his original source into God," etc. — Introd. p. 21 ; cf. p. 372.
8 It is well known that the Jews change "Jehovah "in reading into
"Adonai" or "Elohim," and that the vowels of "Jehovah" itself are
really those of " Adonai." The name, we have seen, is properly Jahweh.
4 Cf. Klostermann, as above.
8 Evidently on this theory the need remains of finding a reason for the
preference of the divine names as much as ever. This brings us back, as at

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 229
documents of the critics, Klostermann substitutes J and E
recensions of one and the same old work.1 To him, as to us,
the piecing together of independent documents in the
manner which the critical theory supposes, appears
incredible. If hypothesis is to be employed, this of
Klostermann, in its general idea, seems to us as good as
any.2 VI. Linguistic and other alleged Grounds for
Separation
It has been shown that the strongest reasons exist,
despite the distinction in the divine names, for believing
that J and E never had currency as separate documents ;
it is now to be asked whether these reasons are overborne
by the remaining grounds ordinarily alleged to prove
that J and E were originally independent. The long
lists of marks of distinction adduced by Dillmann and
other critics3 have at first sight an imposing appear
ance. On closer inspection, however, they reduce them
selves to much scantier dimensions. They were, for the
most part, not obvious to the earlier critics, and, as proofs
of independence, can be shown to be largely illusory. Such,
e.g., are all the marks, formerly adverted to, supposed to
Bhow a superior interest of E in Ephraimitic localities and
in the house of Joseph. It turned out that J displayed at
least as warm an interest in Northern places, while E
dwells also on Beersheba, the one Southern locality that
comes prominently into the part of the history he nar
rates. Indeed, " the South country " is adduced as one of
his favourite phrases.* The chief remaining grounds of dis-
least the main reason, to the feeling of a superior appropriateness of one
name rather than the other in a given context.
1 Cf. Pentateuch, pp. 10, 11, 27 ff.
2 We do not gather that Klostermann supposes his Elohistic recension
to be necessarily late — the same causes probably operated at earlier periods
— or to be inconsistent with a union of JE with P. His own theory is that
such a union goes far back (Pent. p. 185). The fault of Klostermann's
treatment is the excessive scope he allows for variations of the text in
course of transmission. The well-marked physiognomy of the JE and P
text is an argument against such wide change.
8 Cf. Dillmann, Num.-Jos. pp. 617 ff. ; more moderately, Driver,
Introd. pp. 118-19. Genesis, p. xiii.
4 E mentions also Hebron (see above, p. 210), and, if his hand is really
present, as some suppose, in Gen. xv. he must have had an account of the

230 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
tinction are alleged linguistic peculiarities, distinctive modes
of representation, duplicate narratives, etc. Let us look at
these. 1. On the subject of linguistic peculiarities, Dr. Driver's
statement was formerly quoted that "the phraseological
criteria " distinguishing J and E are " slight." x They are
slight, in fact, to a degree of tenuity that often makes the
recital of them appear like trifling. In not a few cases
words are fixed on as characteristic which occur only once
or twice in the whole Pentateuch, or which occur in both J
and E, or in contexts where the analysis is doubtful, or
where the reasoning is of the circular order which first
gives a word to J or E, then assigns a passage to that
document because the word is present in it. Here are a few
examples : —
E is credited with " what may be called an antiquarian
interest," 2 on the ground, among other things, that he once
uses in Genesis (xxxiii. 19), in narrating a purchase, the
word Kesitah (a piece of money) — found elsewhere in the
Bible only in Josh. xxiv. 32 (E ?) and Job xiii. 11.
" Land of the South," above referred to, occurs only three
times in the Pentateuch — in Gen. xx. 1 (E), in Gen. xxiv.
62 (which Delitzsch says cannot be referred to E), and in
Num. xiii. 29 (doubtful) ; and once in Josh. xv. 19 (J).
The phrase " after these things," said to be a mark of E
(Well.), is found first in Gen. xv. 1 (J) — E's presence in this
context is contested, and the analysis is declared to be at
best " only probable " — then in three passages given to E
(Gen. xxii. 1 ; xl. 1 ; xlviii. 1) ; but also in two J passages
(Gen. xxii. 20 ; xxxix. 7), and in Josh. xxiv. 29 (possibly P,
as giving an age).
The word Koh (in sense of "here") in Gen. xxii. 5,
assigned as a mark of E, is found elsewhere once in Genesis
(xxxi. 37 E), in Num. xxiii. 15 (mixed), and besides in
Ex. ii. 12, assigned by Wellhausen to J, and in Num. xi. 31,
given by Kuenen to J.
When we turn to instances which may be judged more
important, we are in hardly better case. One observes that
covenant with Abraham at Mamre. If otherwise, it is not easy to see how
E can be expected to speak of localities which belong to a period before his
own narrative begins.
1 Introd. pp. 13, 126 ; see above, p. 219. 3 Addis, Hex. i. p. Iv.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 231
where other writers indulge in the customary " always " and
"invariably," Dr. Driver frequently uses the safer word
" prefers." x The following are a few principal examples, and
the extent of the " preference " may be gauged from them : —
"The Jahvist," we are told, "calls a female slave or
concubine Shiphhah, the Elohist invariably Amah."2 Dr.
Driver says in the case of E, "prefers" — and prudently.
Amah is used by E some half-dozen times in Genesis (xx. 17 ;
xxi. 10, 12, 13 ; xxx. 3 ; xxxi. 33), but Shiphhah occurs nearly
as often in E or in inseparably interwoven contexts (Gen. xx.
14 ; xxix. 24, 29, assigned to P ; xxx. 4, 7, 18).8 Whether
Amah is used by E or J in Ex. ii. 5, xx. 10 (Fourth Com.),
xxi. (Book of Covenant — repeatedly), depends on the
accuracy of the analysis which assigns these parts to E, and
on this critics are quite divided.* Ex. xxi.-xxiii., e.g., are
given by Wellhausen, Westphal, etc., to J.
We are told again that " the Jahvist speaks of ' Sinai,'
the Elohist of 'Horeb.' E's usage reduces itself to three
passages (Ex. iii. 1 ; xvii. 6 ; xxxiii. 6) — the last two deter
mined mainly by the presence of the word ; J employs Sinai
solely in chaps, xix. (cf. ver. 1 ; xxiv. 16, P) and xxxiv. 2, 4,
in connection with the actual giving of the law.6 The
related expression " mountain of God " seems common (Ex.
iii. 1, E; iv. 27, J; xxiv. 13?).
"The Jahvist," it is said, "calls the aborigines of
Palestine ' Canaanites,' the Elohist ' Amorites.' " This,
on examination, breaks down entirely. E has no monopoly
of " Amorite " (cf. Gen. x. 16 ; xiv. 13 ; xv. 21),6 and the

...j>, p. Xlll.
2 Addis, i. p. lvi. The quotations that follow are also from Addis, pp.
lvi, lvii.
8 It is pure arbitrariness and circular reasoning to change this single
word in chap. xx. 14 and xxx. 18, on the ground that "the regular word for
women slaves in E is Amah," and. that "J on the other hand always
employs Shiphhah " (Oxf. Hex. ii. pp. 29, 45)— the very point in dispute.
In chap. xxix. 24, 29, the verses are cut out and given to P ; chap. xxx.
4, 7 are similarly cut out and given to J (p. 45).
4 Ex. ii. 5 is confessedly given to E because " the linguistic conditions
in vers. 1 and 5 [i.e., this word] point to E rather than J" (Oxf. Hex. ii.
p. 81). Jiilicher, however, gives the verse to J. The assignment of the
Decalogue and the Book of the Covenant are matters of much controversy.
Delitzsch remarks on the latter: "Such words as Amah ... are no
marks of E in contradistinction to J and D." — Genesis, i. p. 32.
8 Possibly Horeb is a wider designation.
6 Oxf. Hex. itself says: "Otherwise in lists." Cf. Kuenen on Gen. x.,
Hex. pp. 140, 149.

232 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
two instances assigned to him in Genesis (xv. 16 ; xlviii. 22)
are in passages of most doubtful analysis.1 Similarly with
the few instances of ' Canaanite ' in J (Gen. x. 18 ; xii. 6 ;
xiii. 7, etc.; cf. xv. 21, "Amorite and Canaanite," given
to R). One other instance must suffice. "The Jahvist calls
Jacob in the latter part of his life 'Israel'; the Elohist
retains the name 'Jacob.'" Dr. Driver more cautiously
says "prefers"; Kuenen says ''generally."2 Here, again,
the case is only made out by tearing asunder the web of what
is evidently a closely-connected narrative, and by liberal
use of the redactor. It will be observed that it is only in
the " latter part " of Jacob's life that this peculiarity is said
to be found. J had recorded the change of name from
Jacob to Israel in chap, xxxii. 24-32,3 but from some
eccentric motive he is supposed not to commence his use of
" Israel" till xxxv. 21. Yet, as the text stands, "Jacob" is
found in a J narrative later (chap, xxxvii. 34), and " Israel "
in a long series of E passages (Gen. xxxvii. 3 ; xiv. 27, 28 ;
xlvi. 1, 2; xlviii. 2, 8, 10, 11, 14, 21). There is no reason
for denying these verses to E except that this name is found
in them. The logician could find no better example of the
circulus vitiosus than in the critical treatment of Gen. xlviii
It may be noted that in Exodus J has " the God of Abraham,
of Isaac, and. of Jacob " (chap. iii. 16), and E in both Genesis
and Exodus has " sons of Israel."
2. Connected with these alleged peculiarities of language
are others which turn more on general style, " tone," mode
of representation of God, and the like. E has a more
elgvated idea of God ; J is more vivid and anthropomorphic,
etc. Much depends here on subjective impression,* and on
the view taken of the relation sustained by E to J — whether
1 Gen. xv. 16 is attributed by Wellhausen, Budde, Kuenen, etc., to
another hand (not to E).
2 "At present we can only say that in the E sections after Gen. xxxii.
the patriarch is generally called 'Jacob,' whereas the J passages generally
speak of Israel," but "in our mongrel state of the text numerous exceptions
occur " (Hex. p. 145).
8 If, with some critics, as Dillmann, we assign Gen. xxxii. 24-32 to E,
we have, as Dr. Green points out, "this curious circumstance," that "P
(xxxv. 10) and E (xxxii. 28) record the change of name to Israel, but never
use it ; J alone makes use of it, and, according to Dillmann, he does not
record the change at all." — Genesis, p. 450.
4 Cf. the illustration given on p. 211.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 233
earlier or later. Two examples may be selected of these
alleged differences, and one or two illustrations given of the
analysis of passages resulting from the theory.
We take examples universally accepted. " The God of
whom he [E] writes," we read, "appears in dreams, or acts
through the ministry of angels."1 "His angel calls out of
heaven." 2 The " dream " criterion is one much insisted on,
and for various reasons deserves attention. As the " dream "
is a lower form of revelation, and is generally employed in
connection with secular personages — Abimelech, Laban,
Joseph (dreams of secular pre-eminence), the butler and
baker, Pharaoh, etc. — it is not wonderful that it should
commonly appear in passages of a prevailingly Elohistic
cast. But the attempt to make out this to be a peculiar
criterion of E proves, on inspection, to be an exaggeration.
The passages adduced in its support, indeed, frequently
prove the contrary. Thus, Gen. xv. 1, given by Driver, is
on the face of it Jehovistic.3 Gen. xx. 3, and most of the
other instances (Abimelech, Laban, Pharaoh), fall under the
above rule of fitness, and in some of the cases are assigned
to E simply because a " dream " is recorded. Gen. xxviii.
10-22 — Jacob's vision at Bethel (cf. chap. xlvi. 2) — is divided
between E and J (arbitrarily, as shown below), but the dream
is implied in both. In E, Jacob sleeps and dreams (ver. 12) ;
in J, he awakes (ver. 16). In J also God reveals Himself to
Isaac in a night vision (chap. xxvi. 24 : cf. E passage above,
xlvi. 2). Further, it is not the case that in E God reveals
Himself only in dreams or by angels, as on the theory He ought
to do. God speaks directly with Abraham in chaps, xxi. 12
(contrast with case of Abimelech), xxii. 1 ; and with Jacob in
chap. xxxv. 1. He " appears " to Jacob at Bethel in E, chap.
xxxv. 7, just as He does in P (ver. 9). Finally, Wellhausen
himself concludes from chap, xxxvii 19, 20 that the "Jahvist"
also must have related Joseph's dreams;* and Professor
Bennett, who adduces this very criterion of E,6 follows suit and
1 Addis, i. p. Iv ; cf. Driver, Genesis, pp. xx, xxi ; McFadyen, Mess, of
Hist. ; " In the Elohist He usually appears in a dream " (p. 19).
2 Driver, ibid. p. xxi ; cf. Addis, i. p. 36 ; McFadyen, p. 19, etc.
8 There is certainly no agreement that chap. xv. 1 is E's. This refutes
also the exclusive right of Eto a "coming " of God in a dream (Driver) —
twice elsewhere in Genesis. Why, it may be asked, if the dream is so
peculiar a mark of E, is it not carried into the other books ?
4 Comp. d. Hex. p. 64. 8 Genesis, p. 31.

234 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
says : " Perhaps J had also an account of Pharaoh's dream." 1
So falls this hypothesis of " dreams " — itself a dream.
The argument based on the calling of the Angel of God
"out of heaven" is not more successful. The expression
occurs once in an E passage, in Gen. xxi. 17, then twice in
chap. xxii. (11, 15), but in both the latter cases in a Jehovistic
form, " the Angel of Jehovah called out of heaven." Even
if the redactor be called in to change the word to " Elohim "
in ver. 11, because of the E context, this is inadmissible in
the second case, where the context is Jehovistic. There is,
in truth, no warrant for changing it in either case. Yet on
this infinitesimally slender basis an argument for the dis
tinction of E is reared.
This leads us to say that no stronger proof for the
inadmissibility of the partition hypothesis in the case of J
and E could be desired than the two passages just referred
to — Gen. xxii. 1-19 (the sacrifice of Isaac), and Gen. xxviii.
10-22 (Jacob at Bethel). We would almost be willing to
stake the case for the unity of the alleged documents
on these narratives alone. Each, on its face, is a single
story, which needs both the parts ascribed to E and those
ascribed to J to constitute it in its completeness, and for
the dividing of which nothing of importance but the
variation in the divine names can be pleaded. The E and
J portions, on the other hand, are unintelligible, if taken
by themselves. Even on the basis of the divine names, the
analysis presents great difficulties, and critics are far from
agreed in their ideas of it. Thus, in Dr. Driver's scheme,
Gen. xxii. 1-14 is given to E, though " Jehovah " occurs in
ver. 11 and twice in ver. 14; in Gen. xxviii. 21, "Jehovah"
occurs in the E part, and has to be forcibly excised. The
unity of the story in both cases is destroyed by the partition.
In Gen. xxii. vers. 1-14 are given, as said, to E, vers. 15-18
to J (others give vers. 14-18 to a Jehovistic "redactor"),
ver. 19, again, is given to E. But each of these parts is
evidently complementary to the others.2 If we break off
1 Genesis, p. 29.
2 Hupfeld, to whom is due the 2nd Elohist, has a remarkable admission
of this. " I cannot conceal the fact," he says, " that the entire narrative
seems to me to bear the stamp of the Jehovist ; and certainly one would
never think of the Elohist, but for the name Elohim, which here (as in part
of the history of Joseph) is not supported by the internal phenomena, and
embarrasses criticism " (Quellen, p. 178). Knobel also says : "Apart from

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 235
with E at vers. 13 or 14 (still more, with the older critics, at
ver. 10), the sequel of the story is clearly lacking. It is the
same with Gen. xxviii. 10-22. E begins with vers. 10-12 ;
vers. 13-16 are given to J; vers. 17, 18 again fall to E;
ver. 19 is credited to J ; and vers. 20-22 are once more E's.1
Is such a patchwork credible, especially when " redactors "
are needed to help out the complicated process ? 2 It is clear
that both documents must have had the story, yet neither,
it appears, is able to tell it completely. Jacob, as already
pointed out, falls asleep in the one document, and awakes in
the other. Even as respects the names, it is difficult not to
see an appropriateness in their distribution, whether that is
supposed due to an original writer, or to a later editor
combining Elohistic and Jehovistic recensions. In both
narratives the story begins on a lower level and mounts to
a higher — the "crisis" in each case being marked by the
change of name. Hengstenberg,8 but also Knobel, Delitzsch,
and others,* have pointed this out in the case of the sacrifice
of Isaac. "Elohim" tempts Abraham, and the name
continues to be used till the trial of faith is complete ; it
then changes — ascends — to "Jehovah" with the new
revelation that arrests the sacrifice, and confirms the
covenant promise. So in Gen. xxviii. 10 ff, Jacob, leaving
his father's house, is practically in a state of spiritual
outlawry. As befits this lower level, he receives his revela
tion in a dream (" angels of Elohim ascending," etc.) ; but
"Jehovah" appears to him above the mystic ladder, and
renews the covenant. It was a revelation of grace, wholly
undeserved and unexpected, designed to set Jacob on his
Elohim nothing in this narrative reminds us of the Elohist ; on the contrary,
everything speaks for the Jehovist " (quoted by Green, Genesis, p. 483).
1 There are variations among the critics here as elsewhere, several, e.g.,
give ver. 10 to J.
2 Orelli says : " Gen. xxviii. is probably Yahwistic, at least the splitting
up of the narrative is in the highest degree arbitrary." — O.T. Prophecy,
p. 105. 8 Gen. of Pent. i. p. 348.
4 Knobel, who gives the whole narrative to J, says : " We have to assume
that the Jehovist here uses Elohim so long as there is reference to a human
sacrifice, and only introduces Jehovah (ver. 11) after setting aside such a
sacrifice, which was foreign to the religion of Jehovah " (as above). The
change to the divine name, says Delitzsch, " is in its present state significant,
the God who commands Abraham to sacrifice Isaac is called ' (Ha)-Elohim,'
and the divine appearance that forbids the sacrifice, ' the Angel of
Jehovah.'" — Genesis, ii. pp. 90-91.

236 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
feet again, and make a new man of him. Only the higher
name was suited to such a theophany.
3. One of the strongest of the evidences — because not
depending on single words — rehed on to prove the distinc
tion of J and E, and the vahdity of the documentary
hypothesis generally, is the occurrence of "duplicate"
narratives of the same event ("doublets"), and to this
subject we may now finally refer. Duplicates, or what are
held to be such, are pointed out in the case of JE and P, as
in the two narratives of creation, Gen. i.-ii. 3 (P), ii. 3 ff.
(J), and the twice naming of Bethel, Gen. xxviii. 19 (J),
xxxv. 15 (P), cf. ver. 7 (E) ; but also between J and E, as in
the twice naming of Beersheba, Gen. xxi. 31 (E), xxvi. 33
(J), the two flights of Hagar, Gen. xvi. 4-14 (J), xxi. 9-21
(E), and specially in the stories of the denials of their wives
by Abraham and Isaac, Gen. xii. 10-20 (J), xx. (E), xxvi.
6-11 (J).1 Similar duplications are thought to be found
in the Mosaic history. The presence of such differing
and so-called contradictory accounts is held to prove
distinct sources.
On these alleged "duplicate" narratives the following
remarks may first be made generally : —
(1) Narratives of the same event may be different in
point of view and detail, without being necessarily, as
is constantly assumed — "contradictory" or "discordant"
(creation, flood, etc.2).
(2) Similar acts may be, and frequently are, repeated
under new circumstances. E.g., in the cases of Bethel and
Beersheba above, the second narrative expressly refers back
to the first (Gen. xxxv. 9, cf. on E below; xxvi. 15, 18).
This close interrelation of the different parts of the narrative
(JEP) is one of the most striking facts about it.
(3) It weakens the argument that " duplications " do not
always occur in different documents — as on the theory they
ought to do — but in no inconsiderable number of cases fall
within the limits of the same document. Thus E has a
second visit to Bethel as well as P (Gen. xxxv. 6, 7); J
has two denials of wives — see below ; alleged duplicate
accounts of the Korahite rebellion are found in Num. xvi.
1 See a list of duplicates in Kuenen, Hex. pp. 38 ff. De Wette laid great
stress on this argument in his Introduction.
2 See below, pp. 346 ff.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 237
3-10 (P),1 etc. Criticism is driven here to further dis
integrations. ,
(4) This suggests, lastly, that, even were the similarity
of incidents as clear as is alleged, it would not necessarily
prove different authorship. The same author might find
varying narrations in the traditions or sources from which
he drew, and might himself reproduce them in his history.
Suppose, to take a favourite instance, that the narrator
of the life of Joseph found the merchants to whom Joseph
was sold described in one of his sources as Ishmaelites and
in another as Midianites, is it not as hkely that he would
himself introduce both names (Gen. xxxvii. 27, 28, 36;
xxxix. 1), as that a later " redactor " should weave together
the varying histories of J and E ? 2 Even this hypothesis is
not necessary, for we have independent evidence that
"Ishmaelites" was used as a wide term to include
"Midianites" (Judg. viii 24). In Hagar's flights (in
second case an expulsion), — one before the birth of Ishmael,
the other when he was grown up to be a lad, — it seems
plain that tradition had preserved the memory of two
incidents, connected with different times and occasions, and
each natural in its own place.8
Without delaying on other instances, we may take, as
a test-case, the most striking of all these " doublets " — the
denial of their wives by Abraham and Isaac — and subject
that, in closing, to a brief analysis. The results will be
1 Cf., e.g., McFadyen's Mess, of Hist. p. 7, where this case is founded on.
See below, pp. 358-59.
8 The critics evolve from the narrative two discrepant histories of
Joseph, according to which, in the one case (E), Joseph is, unknown to the
brothers, taken out of the pit by passing Midianites, and sold to Potiphar,
captain of the guard, in Egypt ; in the other (J) he is sold by the brothers
(no pit) to a company of Ishmaelites, who sell him in turn to an unnamed
Egyptian (no Potiphar). The " they " in ver. 28 is referred to the
Midianites. In chap, xxxix. 1, indeed, Potiphar is expressly said to have
bought him from the Ishmaelites, but this is excised as an interpolation.
The whole thing seems to us an exercise of misplaced ingenuity, refuted by
the narrative, which hangs together as it is, but not on this theory.
8 A difficulty is created about the age of Ishmael in the second story.
The critics adopt the reading of the LXX for chap. xxi. 14, " put the child on
her shoulder, " and find a discrepancy with the representation of him as a lad
of some fourteen years of age (cf. Addis, Hex. i. p. 34). But the story itself
describes him as a "lad" (vers. 12, 17, 18, 19, 20), and the "mocking" of
Isaac (ver. 9) implies some age. Colenso, for once, is not stumbled by the
"carrying," and cites a curious Zulu parallel (quoted in Quarry, Genesis,
p. 456). The LXX reading has no claim to supersede the Hebrew (cf.
Delitzsch, in loc. ). See further below, p. 352.

238 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
instructive, as throwing hght on critical methods, and as
showing how far from simple this matter of " duplicates
really is.
(1) We have first, then, to observe that what we have
here to deal with is not two, but three incidents (not dupli
cates, but triplicates) — one denial in Egypt (Gen. xii.
Abraham), and two in Gerar (chap. xx. Abraham, xxvi
Isaac). Of these narratives, two are classed as Jehovistic
(Gen xii. xxvi.), and one is classed as Elohistic (chap. xx.).
In strictness, therefore, on the duplication theory, we seem
bound to assume for them, not two, but three authors ; and
this, accordingly, is what is now commonly done. It is
allowed that " the narrative in chap. xii. shows the general
style and language of J," 1 but " it can hardly be supposed
that the story of Abram passing off Sarai as his sister at
Pharaoh's court, and that of Isaac dealing similarly with
Rebekah at Gerar, belonged originally to the same series of
traditions." 2 The former story, therefore, must be given to
some later representative of the J "school"8 We have
here the critical process of disintegration in a nutshell
(2) We have next to look at the phenomena of the
divine names. In Gen. xii. 10-20, Dr. Driver, in words
formerly quoted, tells us that " the term Jehovah is uniformly
employed."* In point of fact, it is employed only once
(ver. 17), and, strikingly enough, it is employed once also in
the Elohistic narrative (chap. xx. 18) in a similar connection.
In the third narrative (Gen. xxvi. 6-11), the divine- name
does not occur at all, though the context is Jehovistic (vers.
2, 12). So uncertain, indeed, are the criteria, that, according
to Dillmann,6 Wellhausen actually at first gave Gen. xii.
10-20 to E (same as in chap. xx.). Now, he gives the
section, as above hinted, to a later writer on the ground,
for one thing, that Lot is not mentioned as accompanying
Abraham to Egypt (Lot's presence, however, is plainly
assumed, cf. chap. xiii. 1). As respects the third narrative
(Gen. xxvi.), so far from there being disharmony, the opening
verse of the chapter contains an express reference to the
going down of Abraham to Egypt in the first narrative
(Gen. xii 10) ; but the whole text of this passage (vers. 1-5)
1 Carpenter, Hex. ii. p; 19. 2 Ibid. i. p. 108.
8 See Wellhausen, below. 4 Genesis, p. xi.
¦ Genesis, i. p. 17.

I. THE JE ANALYSIS 239
is made a patchwork of by the critics.1 Finally, in chap.
xx. it remains to be explained how a Jehovist verse comes
to stray into the story of E at ver. 18. It is easy to say
" redactor " ; but one desires to know what moved a redactor
to interpolate into his E context the mention of a fact for
which he had no authority, and to employ in doing so a
divine name out of keeping with his context.
(3) The facts as they stand may be summed up thus.
All three scenes are laid in heathen courts. In the first
and third stories, the divine name is not used in the body of
the narrative (in the third is not used at all) ; in the first
and second, the name " Jehovah " is used towards the close
(chaps, xii 17 ; xx. 18) in connection with the divine action
in inflicting penalty. As two of the narratives are allowed
by the more moderate critics (e.g., Dillmann, Driver) to be
by the same writer (J), there is no need, on the mere
ground of duplication, to assume a different writer for
the third story. All three stories may well have belonged
to the original tradition. Nor do the conditions require us
to treat the stories as simply varying traditions of the same
incident. There are resemblances, but there are also great
differences. From both chaps, xii and xx. it appears that
it was part of Abraham's settled policy, when travelling
in strange parts, to pass off Sarah, still childless, as his
sister (chap, xii 13; xx. 13: on the half-truth by which
this was justified, cf. chap. xx. 12).2 This of itself implies
that the thing was done more than once (cf. "at every
place," etc.) ; if, indeed, chap. xx. 13 is not a direct glancing
back to the former narrative. What Abraham was known
to have done, Isaac, in similar peril, may well have been
tempted to do likewise. In the story about Isaac there is,
in fact, as above noticed, a direct reference to his father's
first visit to Egypt (chap. xxvi. I).8
1 Of. Oxf. Hex. in loc. a See above, p. 109.
8 It would obviously be easy, on similar lines to the above, to make out a
series of "demonstrable" duplicates in, say, British history, as in Spanish
wars, Chinese wars, Afghan wars, mad Mullahs, eto. : so in history
generally.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
The Historicity of the Book of Joshua
The historical character of the Book of Joshua is assailed,
partly on the ground of discrepancies in the narrative, as
in the chapters on the crossing of Jordan (chaps, iii, iv.),
where two accounts apparently blend ; but chiefly because
of an alleged difference in the mode of representation of
the conquest. On the so-called discrepancies we have no
need to deny the use of separate sources,1 if these are not
held to be contradictory. In the above instance, Kohler
remarks that the notices of the two monuments (of twelve
stones, one in Jordan, the other at Gilgal), while belonging
to distinct sources, do not exclude each other, and are both
to be held fast : 2 so in other narratives.
As regards the conquest, it is urged that, according
to one representation, that derived from the Deuteronomic
redactor and the still later P, the conquest under Joshua
was rapid, continuous, and complete ; while older notices
in separate passages,3 and in Judg. i, show that it was
in reality only achieved gradually, by the efforts of the
several tribes, and never completely. There is, however,
if the book be taken as a whole, and allowance be made
for the generahsing tendency peculiar to all summaries, no
necessary contradiction in the different representations of
the conquest ,* while the circumstantiality, local knowledge,
and evidently full recollection of the narratives, give con
fidence in the truth of their statements. On the one hand,
the uniform assumption in all the JE history, from the
1 Probably not, however, the J and E of the previous books. See above,
p. 214. 2 See his Bib. Geschichte, i. pp. 473-74.
8 Kg., chaps, xiii. 13 ; xv. 13-19, 63 ; xvi. 10 ; xvii. 12 ff. ; xviii. 2 ff.
4 Cf. Kbnig's criticism of Budde in his article on Judges in Diet, of
Bible, ii. pp. 818-19. 240

HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF JOSHUA 241
original promise to Abraham of the possession of the land
to the actual conquest, in the Deuteronomic discourses, and
generally in the tradition of the people, is, that the tribes
under Joshua did take effective possession of the land ; and
this is borne out by the fact that in Judges it is not the
Canaanites chiefly by whom they are molested (an exception
is the temporary oppression by Jabin1), but surrounding
and more distant peoples (e.g. Chushan-rishathaim, king
of Mesopotamia,2 Moab,3 Ammon,* Midianites,6 Philistines 6).
With this agrees the picture given of the conquest, begin
ning with the taking of Jericho and Ai, advancing to the
defeat of the confederacy of the kings at Bethhoron, and
destruction of their cities,7 then to the defeat of the greater
confederacy in the North under Jabin, and conquests there,8
afterwards, in more general terms, to further campaigns
in the middle, South, and North of Palestine, till the whole
land has been overrun.9 The course of conquest is what
might have been expected from the terror described by
Rahab (JE?),10 and accords with the retrospect of Joshua
in his last address (E ?).u On it the division of the land,
described with so much topographical minuteness, naturally
follows.12 On the other hand, the Book of Joshua itself gives many
indications that, notwithstanding these extensive, and, as
respects the main object, decisive conquests, there still
remained much land to be possessed, which the tribes
could only conquer gradually.13 Much detail work had
to be done in the several territories; and there is no
difficulty in the supposition that, after the first sweeping
wave of conquest, the Canaanites rallied, and regained
possession of many places, e.g., Hebron, from which they
had been temporarily expelled. An instance of this we
have in Jerusalem, which had been taken by the Israehtes,
1 Judg. iv. 3 Judg. iii. 8 ff.
8 Judg. iii. 12 ff. * Judg. x. 7 ff.
6 Judg. vi. Iff. * Judg.' xiii. 1 ff.
' Josh. x. 8 Josh. xi. 1-14.
9 Josh. xi. 15 ff., xii. 10 Josh. ii. 9 ; of. ver. 24.
11 Josh. xxiv. 11, 18.
12 Chaps, xii. ff. On the historicity of this, see below, pp. 379-80, and of.
Konig on Judges in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 820. It is noted below (p. 242) that
a division of the laud is implied in Judg. i., as Budde himself admits (cf.
Konig, loc. cit.).
18 Josh. xiii. 1, 2 ; see passages cited on p. 240.
16

242 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VII
and burnt with fire, and the population destroyed,1 but
which the Jebusites regained, and held till the time of
David.2 These facts do not really contradict the other
narrative:8 indeed, it is hard to see how a Deuteronomic
redactor could have incorporated them unchanged in his
narrative, if he believed they contradicted it. The language
in Joshua about the conquest is not more sweeping than
that in the Tel el-Amarna tablets about the Khabifi. In
the letters of Abdi-Khiba, king of Jerusalem, e.g., to
Amenophis rv. of Egypt, we have such expressions as the
following: "The cities of my lord, the king, belonging to
Elimeleeh, have fallen away, and the whole territory of the
king will be lost. . . . The king has no longer any
territory. .... If no troops come, the territory of my lord,
the king, is lost." "Bring plainly before my lord, the
king, these words: 'The whole territory of my lord, the
king, is going to ruin.' " " The Khabiri are occupying the
king's cities. There remains not one prince to my lord, the
king: every one is ruined." "The territory of the king
has fallen into the hands of the Khabiri" *
There is no feature in the conquest better attested than
that Joshua was the leader of the tribes in this work, and
that they advanced and acted under his single leadership
till the first stages of the conquest were completed. This
was not a thing done at once, but probably occupied several
years. Kittel, who defends in the main the truth of the
historical recollections in the narrative, and emphasises this
point about Joshua,6 thinks that a partition of the land
(which he finds implied in Judg. i, etc.6) must have taken
place before the conquest began, and supposes that, after
the general crossing of Jordan under Joshua, and capture of
• Judg. i. 8 ; cf. Josh. x.
2 2 Sam. v. 6-8.
8 Konig says : " It is a groundless assertion that the record of Judg. i.
' excludes ' the narrative of the Book of Joshua " (p. 820).
4 See Bennett's Book of Joshua ("Polyohrome Bible"), p. 55. The
Khabiri are supposed by some to have been the Hebrews. See further
below, Chap. XI. p. 421.
8 Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 274. He points out that the view of Meyer, Stade,
etc., that J did not know Joshua, is impugned by Kuenen, Dillmann, and
Budde. 8 The summary in Judg. i., he says, begins with the question, "Who
shall begin the fight ? " and the territory of each tribe is called its " lot " —
"two facts which clearly enough presuppose a previous common agreement,*'
etc.— Ibid. p. 275.

HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF JOSHUA 243
Jericho, Judah and Simeon separated from the main body to
act for themselves in the south. Joshua was thereafter leader
of the Joseph tribes alone.1 The view seems artificial, and
no improvement on that in the book. The course of events
is, we may beheve, correctly represented in Josh. xxiv.
1 Hist. ofHebs. pp. 272-77.

CHAPTER VIII
Difficulties ano perplexities of tbe Critical Udspo*
tbesis : Ube (Question of ©euteronomg

"The Book of Deuteronomy in and for itself teaches nothing new. . . .
How could Josiah have been so terrified because the prescriptions of this
book had not been observed by the fathers, and the people had thereby
incurred the wrath of Jahweh, if he had not been aware that these
commands were known to them t " — GrBAV.
"I am still certain that the finding of the book of the law in the
eighteenth year of Josiah is neither meant, nor is, to be nnderstood of the
first appearance of the Book of Deuteronomy, originating about that time."
— Delitzsch. "Our review of sources has convinced us that it [Deuteronomy] draws
from old Mosaic tradition, which in fact in many plaees goes back
demonstrably into the Mosaic time, and par excellence to the person of the
lawgiver. It goes so far as to incorporate suoh ordinances as no longer
suited the writer's own time, but only suited the time of the conquest and
settlement in Canaan." — Oettli.
" Leaving out of account isolated passages, especially the close, Deutero
nomy is a whole proceeding from one and the same hand." — Riehm.

CHAPTER VIII
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITICAL
HYPOTHESIS : THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY
The questions we have been engaged in discussing with
relation to J and E, while interesting as an object-lesson in
criticism, and, in their bearing on dates, important, are
secondary in comparison with those which yet await in
vestigation — the age and origin of Deuteronomy and of the
so-called Priestly Code. It will be remembered that the
Graf-Wellhausen school does not pretend to settle the age
and relations of documents or codes by critical considera
tions alone. Criticism is to be guided, and its conclusions
are to be checked, at every step, by history. A parallel, it
is alleged, can be traced between the course of the history
and the successive stages of the legislation. Up to the time
of Josiah, it is held, no trace can be discovered of the ex
istence and operation of any body of laws but that of the
Book of the Covenant in Ex. xx.-xxiii. With the finding of
"the book of the law" in Josiah's reign,1 there enters a
manifold influence of the spirit and teaching of the Book of
Deuteronomy, strongly reflected in the later literature —
for instance, in Jeremiah ; but no sign is yet shown of the
peculiar institutions of the Levitical Code. These first
begin to be visible in the sketch of the restored temple and
its ordinances in Ezekiel (chaps, xl. ff.), and emerge as a
definitely completed system in the law-book which Ezra
brought with him from Babylon, and gave to the post-exilian
community in Jerusalem.2 Thenceforth they rule the life
of the nation. The ingenuity of the new scheme is un
doubted, and the acceptance it has won is sufficient evidence
1 2 Kings xxii.
2 Ezra vii. ; Neh. viii. For a popular statement of the theory of the
three Codes see Professor W. B. Smith's O.T. in J. ft, Lects. viii., ix.
"47

248 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
of the skill with which it has been expounded and defended.
But is it really tenable? Many reasons — not the least
cogent of them derived from the course of criticism itself —
convince us it is not. We shall deal in this chapter with
the apphcation of the theory to the Book of Deuteronomy.1
I. State op the Question and General View
The Book of Deuteronomy, in its main part, consists, it
is well known, after a slight introduction, and with some
connecting notes, of three hortatory discourses purporting
to have been delivered by Moses in the Arabah2 of Moab,
shortly before his death (chaps, i. 6-iv. 40, v.-xxviii. ; xxix. 2-
xxx.). To these discourses are appended an account of
certain closing transactions of Moses (chap, xxxi.), the Song
and Blessing of Moses (chaps, xxxii, xxxiii.), and a narrative
of Moses' death on Mount Nebo (chaps, xxxii. 48-52 ; xxxiv.).
The longest of the discourses (chaps, v.-xxviii.) embraces a re
hearsal (chaps, xii. ff'.), in the form of popular address, of the
principal laws given by God to Moses at Horeb, as these
were to be observed by the people in their new settlement
in Canaan. There is general agreement that the laws to
which reference is made in this recapitulation are chiefly —
though, as will be seen after, by no means exclusively — those
contained in the Book of the Covenant (Ex. xx.-xxiii);
but they are handled by the speaker, not literally, but
in free reproduction, with rhetorical amplification or
abbreviation, and occasionally modification to suit new
circumstances. Deuteronomy is the one book of the Pentateuch which
might seem on the face of it to make claim to direct Mosaic
authorship. "Moses," it is declared, after the rehearsal is
completed, "wrote this law."3 This view of its origin
modern criticism decisively rejects ; will hardly allow even
1 Graf makes the Book of Deuteronomy his starting-point. His work
opens : "The composition of Deuteronomy in the age of Josiah is one of the
most generally accepted results of the historical criticism of the Old Testa
ment, for all who do not simply ignore these results." — Geschicht. Bucher,
p. 1 ; cf. p. 4.
2 "That is, the deep valley running north and south of the Dead Sea"
(R.V. ). Usually (in P) Arboth, the steppes or plains of Moab. See an
interesting description in an article on The Steppes of Moab, by Professor G. B.
Gray in Expositor, January 1905.
s Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26 ; see below, pp. 262 ff.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 249
to be discussed.1 It was De Wette's achievement in criticism,
as we saw, that he relegated Deuteronomy to the age of
Josiah ; and in this judgment the great majority of critics
now follow him, only that a few carry back the composition
of the book a reign or two earher — to the time of Manasseh
or of Hezekiah. Views differ as to how the book is to be
regarded — whether as a pseudograph ("forgery"), or as a
free composition in the name and spirit of Moses without
intention to deceive ; but it is generally agreed that, in its
present form, it is a production of the prophetic age, and
has for its leading aim the centralising of worship at the
sanctuary at Jerusalem. The reasons given for this view
are its prophetic tone and standpoint, its obvious connection
with the work of reformation, the irreconcilability of its law
of the central sanctuary with the older history, incon
sistencies with earlier legislation, etc. A main objection of
the older critics was its alleged incompatibility with the
Levitical legislation, then believed to be in substance
Mosaic:2 but the newer criticism has taken the ground
from this objection by putting the Levitical laws still later
than Deuteronomy — in the exile.
What weight is to be allowed to these opinions is con
sidered below. The composition of a book of exhortation or
instruction in the form of addresses by Moses — provided
this is only hterary dress, with honest motive in the writer
— is not a priori to be ruled out as inadmissible, or incom
patible with just views of Scripture.3 The only question is
whether Deuteronomy is a book of this character, or, if it is
so, in what sense and to what extent it is so, and to what
age it belongs. On the other hand, we cannot shut our eyes
to certain far-reaching consequences of the acceptance of
the critical view. If Deuteronomy is a work of the age
of Josiah, then, necessarily, everything in the other Old
Testament books which depends on Deuteronomy — the
Deuteronomic revisions of Joshua and Judges, the Deutero-
1 Cf. Graf, above. Wellhausen says : "About the origin of Deuteronomy
there is still less dispute ; in all circles where appreciation of scientific
results can be looked for at all, it is recognised that it was composed in the
same age as that in which it was discovered, and that it was made the rule
of Josiah's reformation, which took place about a generation before the de
struction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans."— -Si's2. of Israel, p. 9.
2 Cf. Bleek, Introd. i. pp. 328 ff.
8 Ecclesiastes, e.g., put into the mouth of Solomon, is generally admitted,
even by conservative critics, to be a work of this kind.

250 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITffiS:
nomic allusions and speeches in the Books of Kings,1
narratives of facts based on Deuteronomy — e.g., the blessings
and cursings, and writing of the law on stones, at Ebal,2 all
must be put later than that age. If, again, it be the case
that the Levitical laws are later than Deuteronomy, this
requires the carrying of these down to where the critics
place them — at or near the exile. The very gravity of
some of these conclusions is our warrant for raising the
question — Is the critical view correct ? The course of
criticism itself, as just hinted, despite the apparent
unanimity, forces this question upon us. For, as we soon
come to discover, even on the subject of Deuteronomy, the
critical school is rent within itself by divisions which raise
the greatest doubts as to the soundness of the original
premises. The mania for disintegration — the appetite for
which seems to grow with what it feeds on — has been at
work here also. In the Oxford Hexateuch, e.g., — so far to
anticipate, — the unity of Deuteronomy with which criticism
started — that even of the Code in chaps, xii-xxvi. — is lost in
a sort of dissolving view.3 There are, however, in our judg
ment, other and far stronger reasons for scepticism than
even these critical vagaries. We hear much of the reasons
for putting the book late, many of them, we shall find, sadly
overstrained ; but we hear little or nothing of the enormous
difficulties attaching to the critic's own hypothesis. These
are either ignored completely, or are toned down and
minimised till they are made to appear trifling. We are
content, when the case has been presented, to let the reader
judge on that matter for himself. The time, at all events,
we venture to think, has fully come, when a halt should be
called, and the question should be boldly put for recon
sideration — Is the Josianic origin of Deuteronomy a result
1 E.g., Solomon's prayer, 1 Kings viii., or Amaziah's sparing the children
of murderers, 2 Kings xiv. 5, 6.
2 Josh. viii. 30 ff.
3 Of. Hex. i. pp. 92-96; ii. p. 246. On the Code it is said: "The
Code and its envelopments, homiletic and narrative, hortatory or retro
spective, must thus be regarded as the product of a long course of literary
activity to which the various members of a great religious school contributed,
the affinities with the language and thought of Jeremiah [not Jeremiah's
affinities with Deuteronomy] being particularly numerous." To this group,
jt is added, "other additions were made from time to time, involving further
dislocations " ; to these again final additions when JED were united
with P (ii. p. 302).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 251
of scientific criticism which the impartial mind is bound
to accept ? II. Unity and Style of Deuteronomy
As clearing the way for the discussion of date, a few
wordB may be said, first, on the subject of unity and style.
1. No book in the Bible, it may be safely affirmed, bears
on its face a stronger impress of unity than the Book of
Deuteronomy. It is not disputed that, in the form in which
we have it, the book shows traces of editorial redaction.
The discourses are put together with introductory and
connecting notes,1 and the last part of the work, with its
account of Moses' death, and in one or two places what
seem unmistakable indications of JE and P hands,2 points
clearly to such redaction. This suggests the possibility that
such archaeological notices as occur in chap. ii. 10-12, 20-22,
and perhaps slight annotations elsewhere, may come from the
same revisional hand. But these minor, and in general
readily distinguishable, traces of editorial labour only throw
into more commanding rehef the general unity of the book
in thought and style. The most ordinary reader cannot
peruse its chapters without perceiving that, as one has said,
"the same vein of thought, the same tone and tenor of
feeling, the same peculiarities of thought and expression,"
characterise it throughout. Accordingly, up to a compara
tively recent period — till Graf's time — the unity of Deutero
nomy, as respects the discourses, was recognised on nearly
every hand as one of the surest results of criticism.3 It
1 These, however, differ little in style from the rest of the work.
3 Chap, xxxii. 48-52 is generally given to P, and chap. xxxi. 14, 15, 23,
to JE ; both are found in chap, xxxiv.
8 " By far the greater part," says De Wette, " belong to one author." —
Introd. ii. p. 131.
"These" (the discourses), says Bleek, "are so homogeneous in then-
language and whole character that we may assume as certain — and on this
point there is scarcely a conflicting opinion — they were on the whole com
posed in the shape in which we now have them, by one and the same
author."— Introd. i. p. 320.
In 1864 Colenso wrote: "There can be no doubt that Deuteronomy is
throughout the work of the same hand, with the exception of the last
chapter . . . the book is complete in itself and exhibits a perfect unity of
style and subject."— Pent., Pop. edit. p. 185. By 1871, in Pt. vi. of his
large work, he had come to believe that that which admitted of " no doubt "
earlier was wrong, and that the original Deuteronomy began with chap. v.

25 2 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
was not doubted that the book found in the temple and
read to Josiah was substantially the Deuteronomy we possess.
This can no longer be affirmed. The fine art of distinc
tion acquired in the dissection of the other Pentateuchal
" sources " soon led, as it could not but do — as it would do
with any book in existence — to the discovery of abundant
reasons for dividing up Deuteronomy also, first, into a
number of larger sections of different ages, then into a
variety of smaller pieces,1 till, latterly, as indicated above,
the unity tends entirely to disappear in the flux of the
labours of a "school." Kuenen, who, in this point, is
relatively conservative, extends the length of what he calls
" the Deuteronomic period, which began in the year 621[2]
B.C., and which called the additions to D1 "into existence,"
beyond the beginning of the Babylonian captivity.2 Broadly,
however, two main opinions on division may be distinguished,
in regard to which we are happy in being able to leave it
with the critics to answer each other. (1) There is the
view of Wellhausen, Cornill, and others, who would limit
the original Book of Deuteronomy (its " kernel ") to chaps.
xii-xxvi. ; but this, as Dr. Driver justly says, " upon grounds
which cannot be deemed cogent." 8 Even Kuenen contests
the reasons of Wellhausen on this point, and upholds the
unity of chaps, v.-xxvi.4 He gives also chap, xxviii. to the
author of these chapters, as against Wellhausen.5 (2)
Kuenen, however, following Graf,6 here draws a new line,
and, " with the majority of recent critics," says Dr. Driver,
" declares chaps, i-iv. to be the work of a different hand." 7
The resemblance of style fcannot be denied, but, says
Kuenen, " the great similarity of language must be explained
as the result of imitation." 8 To Dr. Driver himself there
seems " no conclusive reason " for questioning the unity of
1 See Note A on the Breaking up of Deuteronomy.
' Hex. p. 225. s Deut. p. Ixv.
4 Hex. pp. 113 ff. « Ibid. pp. 126 ff.
8 Cf. Graf, Geschicht. Biicher. pp. 4, 5. It is interesting to notice the
reasons given by Graf, as a pioneer in this division. He does not base it on
style. He thinks, indeed, that in parts a greater " diffuseness " may be
detected, but this "may perhaps seem too subjective." His objective reason
is that, through the first four chapters, Deuteronomy is "closely bound
with the preceding books," even as "the last four chapters contain the
continuation of the historical narrations of those books." This does not
suit his hypothesis that the Pentateuch as a whole did not exist in Josiah's
day. 7 Deut. p. lxvii ; cf. Kuenen, Hex. pp. 117 ff. 8 Hex. p. 117,

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 253
chaps, i.— iii. with the body of the work, and he doubts whether
" the only reason of any weight " for questioning chap. iv.
1-40 is conclusive either.1 Oettli, another witness, says on
chaps, i-iv. : " The usage of speech is the same as in chaps.
v.-xi"2 F
For ourselves, the broad argument from unity of thought,
language, and style throughout the book seems overwhelming
against all these attempts at disintegration. Dr. Driver is
mainly with us here. He points out how " particular words,
and phrases, consisting sometimes of entire clauses, recur
with extraordinary frequency, giving a distinctive colouring
to every part of the work." 3 Almost more important is his
statement that " the majority of the expressions noted occur
seldom or never besides; others occur only in passages
modelled upon the style of Deuteronomy, and representing
the same point of view."4 As respects the opinions of
other critics, Dillmann, Westphal, Kittel, Oetth, Dehtzsch
and others, defend, like Dr. Driver, the general unity of
Deuteronomy. Dillmann and Westphal, however, have
hypotheses of transpositions, etc., which Dr. Driver, with
good reason, rejects as "intrinsically improbable."6 The
unity of Deuteronomy, it may be concluded, is hkely to
survive the attacks made upon it.
2. An interesting question arises here, with considerable
bearings on later discussions — How does the style of Deutero
nomy stand related to that of the other Pentateuchal books,
and to those passages said to be "modelled" on it in other
Old Testament writings ? There are marked differences
between the Deuteronomic and the JE and P styles, but it
is important that these should not be exaggerated, and that
affinities also should be noted.6 Delitzsch, in his Genesis,
1 Deut. p. lxxii. 2 Com. on Deut. p. 9.
8 Deut. p. lxxvii. Dr. Driver's words on chaps, v. -xxvi. , xxviii. are worth
quoting: "There is no sufficient reason for doubting that the whole of
these chapters formed part of the law-book found by Hilkiah ; all are
written in the same style, and all breathe the same spirit, the only material
difference being that, from the nature of the case, the parenetic phraseology
is not so exclusively predominant in chaps, xii. -xxvi., xxviii. asitisincbaps.
v.-xi. . . . Chaps, v. -xxvi. may thus be concluded, without hesitation, to be
the work of a single author ; and chap, xxviii. may be included without
serious misgivings." — Pp. lxv, lxvii.
4 Ibid. p. lxxxv.
6 Ibid. p. lxxv. Kittel sympathises with Dillmann and Westphal. See
his Hist, of Hebs. i. pp. 53 ff.
• See Note B on Deuteronomic and Priestly Styles.

254 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
made an interesting attempt, from comparison of the
Decalogue and Book of the Covenant with Deuteronomy
(which he took to be Mosaic in kernel), to arrive at an idea
of the mode of thought and language of Moses. He found
many Deuteronomic assonances in the above writings, and
concluded that there was " an original Mosaic type," which
he termed " Jehovistic-Deuteronomic." 1 It is at any rate
certain that comparison with the other Pentateuchal books
reveals some curious relations. Of all styles, that of the so-
called P is furthest removed from Deuteronomy; yet in
Lev. xxvi., which is of the P type, the language rises to a
quite Deuteronomic strain of hortatory and admonitory
eloquence. The resemblance is in fact so remarkable that
it is commonly allowed that a close relation of some kind
subsists between Lev. xxvi. and Deuteronomy, whether of
priority or dependence on the part of Leviticus remains yet
to be considered.2 The affinities of Deuteronomy with JE
are much closer.3 Such are clearly traceable in the Deca
logue and Book of the Covenant,4 whether we ascribe the
latter, with some critics, to J, or, with others, to E.6 More
generally, " there are," says Dr. Driver, " certain sections of
JE (in particular, Gen. xxvi. 5 ; Ex. xiii. 3-16 ; xv. 26 ; xix.
3-6 ; parts of xx. 2-17 ; xxiii. 20-23 ; xxxiv. 10-26), in
which the author (or compiler) adopts a parenetic tone, and
where his style displays what may be termed an approxima
tion to the style of Deuteronomy ; and these sections appear
to have been the source from which the. author of Deutero
nomy adopted some of the expressions currently used by
him."6 Not, it will be observed, borrowed from Deutero
nomy, — a proof, surely, of an early Deuteronomic type.
1 Genesis, pp. 29-32.
2 Cf. Colenso, Pent., Pt. vi. pp. 4 ff. ; and see on Law of Holiness below,
Chap. IX. pp. 308 ff. On P phrases in Deuteronomy, see below, p. 277.
8 Some older critics, as Stahelin, even attributed the composition of
Deuteronomy to the Jehovist. De Wette writes of Deuteronomy: "By
far the greater part belongs to one author, and, as it appears, to the
Jehovistic, of which it has numerous characteristic marks." — Introd. ii. p. 181.
4 Cf. Delitzsch above. Wellhausen — Dillmann also— explains the refer
ences by a " back-current " from Deuteronomy. But the Decalogue, whether
provided with " enlargements " or not, must in its present form, as incorpor
ated in the JE history, have been older than Deuteronomy (on critical date
of that book). So with the Book of the Covenant.
6 See above, p. 231 ; below, p. 276.
6 Deut. pp. lxxvii-lxxviii-; cf. pp. Ixxxv-vi. Delitzsch also finds
Deuteronomic traces occasionally in Genesis (e.g., chap. xxvi. 5). Colenso

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 255
Still more interesting in this connection are certain
passages in Joshua, Judges, and Samuel, described by
Dr. Driver as "pre-Deuteronomic" (i.e., pre-Josianic), and
"allied to E," yet which have affinities in thought and
expression to Deuteronomy.1 And a last interesting and
curious fact, as bearing on the alleged "modelling" on
Deuteronomy, is that, if Dr. Driver is correct, the purity
of the Deuteronomic revisers' style seems to diminish as
we recede further in the history from the Mosaic age.
It is, he tells us, most "strongly-marked" in Joshua and
Judges, hardly appears in Samuel at all, is mingled with
other forms of expression in Kings. " It is interesting to
note," he observes, "what is on the whole an interesting
accumulation of deviations from the original Deuteronomic
type, till in, e.g., 2 Kings xvii. it is mingled with phrases
derived from the Book of Kings itself, Judges, and
Jeremiah." 2 The inference we are disposed to draw from
these facts is not quite that of the learned author. They
appear to us to point to a much earlier dating and influence
of Deuteronomy than he would allow.
III. Difficulties of Critical Theory on Age
and Origin
We now approach the central problem of the age and
origin of the book. Was the Book of Deuteronomy, as the
critics, with nearly united voice, allege, a production of the
age of Josiah, or of one of his immediate predecessors ? If
not, what were the circumstances of its origin ? It is
extremely important to observe that for most of the
critics this question is already settled before they begin.
Deuteronomy is universally allowed to presuppose, and to
finds the hand of the Deuteronomist traceable from Genesis to 2 Kings
(Pent., Pt. vi. p. 28). He finally finds 117 Deuteronomic verses in Genesis,
138J in Exodus, and 156J in Numbers (Pt. vii. pp. 'i-vi ; App. pp. 145 ff.).
Kuenen points out that Wellhausen approaches the positions of Stahelin
and Colenso " when, from time to time, he notes a relationship between JE,
i.e., the redactor of the two works J and E, and the Book of Deuteronomy,
and even asks whether JE may not have been revised by a deuteronomic
redactor." — Hex. p. 137.
1 Ibid. p. lxxxvi. Cf. Introd. pp. 106, 107, etc. Such passages are
parts of Josh. xxiv. 1-26 ; Judg. vi. 7-10 ; x. 6-16 ; 1 Sam. ii. 17-36 ;
parts of 1 Sam. vii. -viii. ; x. 11-27, etc.
2 Ibid. p. xcii.

256 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
be dependent on, the laws and history contained in JE,
and, these writings being brought down by general con
sent to the ninth or eighth century B.C., a later date for
Deuteronomy necessarily follows.1 We decline to bind
ourselves in starting by this or any similar assumption. It
may well be that the result of the argument will rather
be to push the date of JE farther back, than to make
Deuteronomy late. Reasons for the late date are found
in the narrative of the finding of "the book of the law"
in 2 Kings xxii, in statements of Deuteronomy itself, and
in the character of its laws, compared with the earher code,
and with the history.2 It seems to us, on the other hand,
that, under these very heads, insoluble difficulties arise,
which really amount to a disproof of the critical theory.
Reversing the usual procedure, it will be our aim, first,
to set forth these difficulties which call for a revisal of
the current view, then to weigh the force of the considera
tions adduced in its support.
1. Investigation naturally begins with the narrative of
the finding of "the booksof the law" in the eighteenth year
of the reign of Josiah (b.c. 622), which criticism holds to be
the first appearance of Deuteronomy. The story, in brief,
is that, during repairs in the temple, Hilkiah the high
priest found a book, identified and described by him as
"the book of the law." He announced his discovery to
Shaphan the scribe, who, after reading the book himself,
presented and read it to the king. Josiah was extra
ordinarily moved by what he heard, confessed the guilt
of the "fathers" in not hearkening to the words of this
book, sent to inquire of Jehovah at the prophetess Huldah,
finally, after the holding of a great assembly, and the renewal
of the nation's covenant with God on the basis of the book,
instituted and carried through the remarkable " reformation "
1 " Of course," remarks Dr. Driver, "for those who admit this [(viz., that
JE is long subsequent to Moses)], the post-Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy
follows at once ; for, as was shown above, it is dependent upon, and conse
quently later than, JE." — Deut. p. xiii. Thus one part of the theory rules
another. 2 Dr. Driver again says : "As a work of the Mosaic age, Deuteronomy,
I must own, though intelligible, if it stood perfectly alone, — i.e., if the
history of Israel had been other than it was, — does not seem to me in
telligible, when read in the light shed upon it by other parts of the Old
Testament." — Ibid. Pref. p. xii. This seems to show that it is the history
(or view taken of it) which really decides the late date.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 257
connected with his name.1 There is no reason to doubt that
the book which called forth this reformation, embraced, if
it did not entirely consist of, the Book of Deuteronomy.2
The critical theory, in its usual form, is, that the book was
composed at or about this time, and was deposited in the
temple, with the express design of bringing about just such
a result. Is this credible or likely ?
(1) Now, if anything is clear on the face of the narrative
above summarised, it surely is, that this finding of the book
of the law in the temple was regarded by everybody con
cerned as the genuine discovery of an old lost book, and that
the " book of the law " of Moses. This is evident as well
from the terms in which the book is described (" the book
of the law,"3 "the book of the covenant,"* "the law of
Moses " 5), as from the profound impression it produced on
king and people, and from the covenant and reformation
founded on it. Hilkiah, who announced its discovery in the
words, " I have found the book of the law in the house
of Jehovah,"8 the king, who was vehemently distressed
"because our fathers have not hearkened to the words of
this book,"7 Huldah the prophetess, who confirmed the
threatenings of the book,8 had no other idea of it. There
is not a whisper of doubt regarding its genuineness from
any side — from priests at the temple, whose revenues it
seriously interfered with, from prophets, on many of whom
it bore hardly less severely, from the people, whose mode
of life and religious habits it revolutionised, from priests
of the high places, whom it deposed, and whose worship
it put down as a high crime against Jehovah. The critics
1 2 Kings xxii., xxiii. ; cf. 2 Chron. xxxiv., xxxv. The credence accorded
to this narrative in 2 Kings by the critics contrasts singularly with their
free treatment of other parts of the later history of Kings, e.g., the reforms
of Hezekiah (2 Kings xviii. 4ff.) questioned by Wellhausen, Stade, Smend,
etc.), and the deliverance from Sennacherib (chap, xix.; cf. H. P. Smith,
0. T. Hist. p. 245).
2 The narrative in Kings generally does not require, though at points it
suggests, more (e.g., chap, xxiii. 21) ; the Chronicler's account of the great
Passover implies the Mosaic ordinance.
8 2 Kings xxii. 8. 4 Chap, xxiii. 2. * Chap, xxiii. 24, 25.
* Chap. xxii. 8.
* Chap. xxii. 13; cf. Jer. xxxiv. 13 ff. Professor W. B. Smith could
persuade himself that " it was of no consequence to him [Josiah] to know the
exact date of the authorship of the book "—0. T. in J. C. Not its exact
date, perhaps, but its antiquity ?
8 Chap. xxii. 16.
!7

258 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
themselves do not dispute, but freely allow, that it was
taken for a genuinely Mosaic book, and that it was this
fact which gave it its authority. The last thing, we may
be certain, that would enter the minds of Josiah or of
those associated with him, was that the book which so
greatly moved them was one newly composed by prophetic
or priestly men of their own circles. This was a point,
moreover, on which we may be sure that king and people
would not be readily deceived. People at no time are easily
deceived where their own interests or privileges are con
cerned, but in this case there were special difficulties. A
new book, after all, does not look like an old one ; and if
high priest, scribe, king, prophetess, were misled into
thinking that they were dealing with an old Mosaic book,
when the parchment in their hands was one on which
the ink was hardly dry, they must have been simpletons
to a degree without parallel in history. On the other
hand, assume the book to have been old, mouldy, de
faced, and what are we to say of its recent origin ? Did its
authors, as Oettli asks, disfigure the book to make it look
old?1 (2) To these objections, there is but one plain answer, if
the Josianic origin of the book is to be upheld, and that is
an answer which the more influential leaders of the new
school do not hesitate to give — the book was a result of
pious fraud, or of a deliberate intention to deceive. It was
a " pseudograph " ; in popular speech, a " forgery." This,
without any disguise, is the view taken of the matter by
Reuss, Graf, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Stade, Cornill, Cheyne,
etc.,2 as by Colenso,3 and many older critics. Many
believing scholars, to their credit, repudiate it, but their
scruples are treated by the real masters of the school as
the result of timidity and weak compromise. Yet, as
Klostermann says, in criticising it, " What a swallowing of
1 Deut. Introd. p. 19.
2 One of Reuss' propositions (endorsed by Wellhausen) is : " Deuteronomy
is the book which the priests pretended to have found in the temple in the
time of Josiah." — Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 4. For the views of other
scholars, see Note C on Deuteronomy as Fraus Pia.
8 Colenso, who thinks it likely that Jeremiah was the falsarius, writes :
"What it [the inner voice] ordered him to do, he would do without hesita
tion, as by direct command of God ; and all considerations of morality or
immorality would either not be entertained," etc. (Pent. Pop. edit. 1864,
p. 201 ; cf. pp. 196 ff.).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 259
camels is here!"1 It 'is a view which, despite the excuse
attempted to be made for it by talk about the " less strict "
notions of truth in those days,2 shocks the moral sense, and
is not for a moment to be entertained of a circle to which
the prophet Jeremiah, with his scathing denunciations of
lying and deceit, and of the " false pen of the scribes " that
" wrought falsely," 3 belonged. Not that even on this
supposition the difficulty of the transaction is removed.
Hjlkiah might be a party with prophets and priests in an
intrigue to palm off a " book of the law " on the unsuspecting
kjjjgsj-* but how should he be able to use such language to
Shaphan as, " I have found the book of the law " ? or how
should Josiah speak of the disobedience of the " fathers "
to commandments which he must have been aware were not
known to them ? Is it not apparent that, though " the
book of the law " had long been neglected, disobeyed, and
allowed to become practically a dead letter, men still knew
of the existence of such a book, and had sufficient idea of
its contents to be able to recognise it when this old temple
copy, which had evidently been left to he covered with its
dust, one does not know how long, in some recess, was
suddenly brought to light. It is nothing to the point to
urge, in answer, that, had Deuteronomy existed earlier,
there could not have been that long course of flagrant
violation of its precepts which Josiah deplores. The whole
condition of Jerusalem and Judah at this time, as described
in 2 Kings xxiii., was in flagrant violation of far more
fundamental statutes than that of the central sanctuary in
Deuteronomy. Let one read, e.g., the account of the state
of things under Manasseh, or in Josiah's time, alongside
of such a sentence as the following from Dr. Driver:
"Now if there is one thing which (even upon the most
strictly critical premises) is certain about Moses, it is
that he laid the greatest stress upon Jehovah's being
Israel's only God, who tolerated no other God beside Him,
and who claimed to be the only object of the Israehte's
1 Pent. p. 97.
2 Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 19. See Note C.
8 Jer. viii. 8 ; cf. chaps, v. 30, 31, vi. 3-8, etc. See below, p. 294.
4 The extreme improbability of Hilkiah being a party to the forgery of
a work which (on the theory) seriously infringed on the privileges of the
Jerusalem priesthood, is pointed out by many writers (W. E. Smith,
Dillmann, Kittel, Driver, etc.).

260 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
allegiance."1 And are there no parallels in history, both
to the condition of neglect into which the book of the law
had fallen, and to the startling effect of the timely re
discovery of a book long forgotten?2
(3) In light of these facts, it is not a little singular that
Dr. Driver, in repelling the charge that "if the critical
view of Deuteronomy be correct, the book is a 'forgery,'
the author of which sought to shelter himself under a great
name, and to secure by a fiction recognition or authoni'ty
for a number of laws 'invented' by himself"3 — should not
make it clearer than he does that this opinion — reprSlaiited
by him as a groundless " objection " of opponents — is, sb far
as the pseudographic character of the work is concerned,
precisely and explicitly that of the heads of the school with
which " the critical view " he defends is specially associated.
It is the theory also, we cannot help agreeing, to whicn we
are logically brought, if it is assumed that Deuteronomy is
really a product of the age of Josiah, in which it was found.4
Dr. Driver himself, however, and, as already said, most
believing scholars, separate themselves from this obnoxious
hypothesis of deceit, and, to explain the " discovery " of the
book by Hilkiah, commonly suppose that it belongs to a
somewhat earlier period6 — e.g., to the reign of Manasseh,
or that of Hezekiah, or the age immediately before Hezekiah.6
1 Deut. p. lix.
2 The general neglect of the Scriptures in the age before the Reformation,
and the effect on Luther's mind and work of the discovery of a complete
copy of the Bible at Erfurt, offer a partial illustration. For a remarkable
instance of the total oblivion of a noted code of laws in the Middle Ages, see
Note D on Oblivion of Charlemagne's Code.
8 Deut. p. Ixi. Dr. Driver refers to the plot theory on p. liv. Even as
regards "invention," it may be noticed that this was the view of De Wette,
who first set the ball a-rolling. The book may be proved, De Wette
thought, " to rest entirely on fiction, and indeed so much so that, while the
preceding books amidst myths contained traditional data, here tradition
does not seem in any instance to have supplied any materials." — Beitrdge,
ii. pp. 385 ff. ; cf. i. p. 268.
4 Cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebrews, i. pp. 64 ff.
8 Dr. Driver says that " the narrative of the discovery certainly supports
the view that the book which was found was one which had been lost for
some time, not one which had just been written " (p. liv). His own mind
leans to an origin in the childhood of Josiah. But does this answer to the
idea of a book " lost " for some time, and, apart from fraud, what would be
the appearance of such a book ?
6 So Ewald, Bleek, W. R. Smith, Kittel, Kautzsch, etc. (Manasseh) ;
Delitzsch, Riehm, Westphal, Oettli, Konig, Klostermann, eto. (Hezekiah or
before).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 261
The moral qualms which lead to these theories are to be
respected, but those who adopt them now labour under the
disadvantage that, having cut themselves away from the
age of Josiah, they have no fixed principle to go by, and,
apart from a priori assumptions in regard to the course of
development, there is no particular reason why they should
stop where they do, and not carry the date of Deuteronomy
much higher still. They find themselves exposed also to
the attacks of the advocates of the Josiah date, who point
out the unsuitability of Deuteronomy to Manasseh's gloomy
reign ("the calm and hopeful spirit which the author
displays, and the absence even of any covert allusion to the
special troubles of Manasseh's reign " x) ; but, above all, urge
what Kuenen calls "the great, and in my opinion fatal
objection," " that it makes the actual reformation the work
of those who had not planned it, but were blind tools in the
service of the unknown projector."2 It would, indeed, be
strange procedure on the part of anyone composing a work
in the spirit of Moses, yet not desiring to pass it off as other
than his own, to deposit it secretly in the temple, there to
lie undiscovered for perhaps a century — finally, in the irony
of history, on its coming to light, to be accepted as a work
of Moses, and continuously regarded as such by the Jewish
and Christian world for over two millenniums! "Fatal"
objections thus seem to he at the door of all these hypotheses,
and we are driven to ask whether some other explanation is
not imperative.
(4) It may be added that the critics are seriously at
variance on another point, viz., whether the author of
Deuteronomy in Josiah's — or an earlier — age is to be sought
for among the prophets or the priests. It seems a curious
question to ask, after starting with the view that
Deuteronomy was a " prophetic " programme ; yet it is
one of no small importance in its bearings on origin, and
the reasons against either view, on the critical premises,
seem extremely strong. If a prophet, why, unlike the
practice- of other prophets, did he adopt this device of
clothing his message in the form of addresses of Moses,
1 Deut. p. liii.
2 Hex. p. 21 9. Kuenen adds : " The rdle assigned to D himself is almost
equally improbable ; for he is made to commit his aspirations to writing,
urge their realisation with intense fervour — and leave the result to chance "
(p. 220). Of. Carpenter, Hex. i. pp. 96-97.

262 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
and whence the strength of his interest in the sanctuary,
its worship, and its feasts ? As Kuenen, who favours the
view of the priestly origin, points out : " It is obvious from
Deut. xxiv. 8, and still more from chaps, xvii. 18, xxxi. 9,
that the Deuteronomist had relations with the priesthood
of Jerusalem. In chap. xiv. 3-21 he even incorporates a
priestly torah on clean and unclean animals into his book
of law."1 But then, on the other hand, if a priest,
how account for the remodelling of the older laws in a
direction inimical to the prerogatives of the Jerusalem
priesthood ? 2 The last thing one would look for from a
priest would be the concocting of ordinances which meant
the sharing of his temple perquisites with all Levites who
chose to claim them. The idea, again, of a joint composition
by prophets and priests is not favoured by the conditions of
the age, and is opposed to the unity of style and spirit in
the book. This apparent conflict of interests, so difficult to
harmonise with the time of Josiah, seems to point to an
origin far nearer the fountainhead.
2. The next natural branch of inquiry relates to the testi
mony of the book itself as to the circumstances of its own origin.
To the ordinary reader it might seem as if no doubt whatever
could rest on this point. The book would appear in the
most explicit fashion to claim for itself a Mosaic origin.
Not only are the discourses it contains affirmed to have
been delivered by Moses in the Ardbah of Moab — this might
be accounted for by literary impersonation — but at the close
there are express attestations that Moses wrote his law,
and delivered it into the custody of the priests for safe
preservation. " And Moses wrote this law," we read, " and
delivered it unto the priests, the sons of Levi. . . . When
Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in
a book, until they were finished, Moses commanded the
Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of Jehovah,
saying, Take this book of the law, and put it by the side of
the ark," etc.3 In view of these declarations, one does not
well know what to make of the remarkable statement of
Dr. Driver that, " though it may appear paradoxical to say
1 Hex. p. 273. It is to be remembered that Hilkiah was a priest.
2 Cf. Kautzsch, in criticism of this view, Lit. of O.T., pp. 64-65.
8 Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26. The Song and the Blessing of Moses are also said
to be from Moses — the former to have been written by him (chaps, xxxi. 22,
xxxiii. 1).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 263
so, Deuteronomy does not claim to be written by Moses."1
The paradox Dr. Driver defends is, at all events, not one
accepted by the leaders of the critical school, who lay stress
upon the fact that the writer obviously intended his book to
be received as genuinely Mosaic, and in that way sought to
gain authority for its teachings.2 It was undoubtedly as a
genuine work of Moses — subject, of course, to any necessary
revisional processes — that it was received by Josiah and his
contemporaries. There is, however, the possibility of a mediating view,
which must in justice be taken account of, though it is not one,
it seems to us, which greatly helps the newer critics. First,
we should say, as respects the scope of the above testimony,
we entirely agree that the words, " Moses wrote this law,"
cannot, in the connection in which they stand, be fairly
extended, as has sometimes been attempted, to cover the
whole Pentateuch.3 On the other hand, we see no fitness
or probability in confining them, with Delitzsch 4 and many
others, to the " kernel " of the Mosaic law in chaps, xii-xxvi.
The word torah must be taken here in its widest sense as
covering the hortatory and admonitory parts of the book,
not less than its strictly legal portions.6 The godly of later
times, who found their souls' nourishment and delight in
1 Introd. p. 89. The fact that the above statements are made in the third
person does not alter their purport. Dillmann's explanation of the notice
of authorship is singularly roundabout and lame. "The statement,"
he says, " is satisfactorily explained by the fact that the writer was convinced
of the antiquity and Mosaic character of the law [represented as] expounded
by Moses, and it was precisely for one who wished to give out the old
Mosaic law in a renewed form that an express statement of the writing down
and preservation of that law was indispensable." — Num.-Jos. p. 601.
" Indispensable" to assert that as a fact which existed nowhere but in his
own imagination !
2 De Wette says : " The author of Deuteronomy, as it appears, would have
us regard his whole book as the work of Moses." — Introd. ii. p. 159. Cornill
instances Deuteronomy as "an instructive proof that only under the name
of Moses did a later writer believe himself able to reckon on a hearing as a
religious lawgiver. " — Einleit. p. 37.
'Thus Hengstenberg, Havernick, eto.
4 Genesis, i. pp. 36-37.
• Cf. chap. i. 5 : "began Moses to declare this law." There is little force
in the objection drawn from the command to write the law on plastered
stones on Mount Ebal (Deut. xxvii. 3). The recently discovered Code of
Hammurabi shows what was possible to ancient times in the way of writing
on stones. It is stated by Dr. Green that " the famous Behistun inscription
of Darius in its triple form is twice as long as this entire Code (Chaps, xii.
xxvi. ), besides being carved in bold characters on the solid rock, and in a
position difficult of access on the mountain side." — Moses and Prophet s, p. 53

264 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
the " law of Jehovah " (cf. Pss. i, xix. 7 ff, cxix., etc.), had, we
may be sure, other material before them than the bare legal
precepts of either the Deuteronomic or the Priestly Code.1
The notice can only fairly be understood as meaning that
Moses put in writing, and delivered to the priests, the
substance, if not the letter, of what he had just been saying ;
and such a statement, once and again repeated in the book
(cf. in addition to the above, chap. xvii. 18), must, for those
who recognise its honesty of intent, always have the greatest
weight. But, this being granted, the question remains
whether the words "this law" necessarily apply to the
discourses precisely as we have them, i.e., in their present
literary form. Assuming that Moses, as Delitzsch conjectures,
"before his departure left behind with the priestly order
an autograph torah to be preserved and disseminated,"2
may we not reasonably suppose that, in the book as we
possess it, we have, not a literal transcription of that torah,
but a "free literary reproduction" of its contents, in the
form best adapted for general instruction and edification,
with occasional developments and modifications suited to
the time of its origin ? So again Delitzsch and not a few
others think. "The Deuteronomian," he says, "has com
pletely appropriated the thoughts and language of Moses,
and from a genuine oneness of mind with him reproduces
them in the highest intensity of divine inspiration." 3
There will be httle doubt, we think, as to the admissibility
of this " reproduction " theory, if the circumstances are
shown to require it. It implies no purpose to deceive, and
stands on a different footing from theories which, under the
name "development," assume the attribution to Moses of
ideas, laws, and institutions, not only unknown to him, but, if
the critical hypothesis is correct, actually in conflict with his
genuine legislation. Perhaps, also, in a modified degree,
1 See below, pp. 376-77. 2 Genesis, i. p. 35.
8 Ibid. Cf. also art. in Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 503-5. For
related views, cf. Oettli, Deut. Introd. pp. 16-18 ; Ladd's Doct. of Sac. Scrip
ture, i. p. 527-29 ; Robertson, Early Religion, etc., pp. 420-25. Dr. Driver
approximates to this view. "Deuteronomy," he says, "may be described as
theprqphetic reformulation, and adaptation to new needs, of an older legislation.
It is probable that there was a tradition, if not a written record, of a final
legislative address delivered by Moses in the steppes of Moab ; tbe plan
followed by the author would rest upon a more obvious motive, if he thus
worked upon a traditional basis " (p. ixi). This too much ignores the strong
positive testimony that Moses did write his last discourses.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 265
some recasting in form and language, in the sense of this
hypothesis, must be admitted, if we suppose — what is very
probable — that the script which Moses used was other
than the ancient Hebrew, or grant that the discourses were
written out rather in substance than in full detail — leaving
it to the transcriber or interpreter to fill out, and give the
living impression of scene and voice. If this was done (as
we believe it must have been) when the remembrance or
tradition of Moses and his time was still vivid and reliable,
it would give us a book such as we have in Deuteronomy.
On the other hand, if so much is admitted about Moses, the
question which must always recur regarding this theory, even
to the very limited extent indicated., is — Qui bono ? If, as
Delitzsch supposes, the contents of Deuteronomy are sub
stantially Mosaic, — if Moses really delivered testamentary
discourses, and in some form wrote them down for posterity,
— whence the necessity for this literary " double " to re-write
and improve them ? Why should the form in which Moses
spoke and wrote them not be substantially that in which we
have them ? Shall we suppose that the actual discourses
were less grand and sustained in style — less tender, glowing,
and eloquent — than those we possess, — that they contained
less recitation of God's dealings,1 less expostulation, exhort
ation, and affectionate appeal, — or were less impressive in
their counsels and warnings ? Or that Moses, when he came
to write them down — "till they were finished," says the
text — was not able to make as noble and powerful a record
of them as any inspired man of a later date ? We, at least,
have a less mean idea of Moses, the man of God, and of his
literary capabilities. We have a full and vivid picture of
him, and specimens of his style of thought and pleading, in
the history ; we can judge of his lofty gifts, if the Ode at the
Red Sea, or the Song in Deuteronomy,2 are from his pen ;
and we may well believe that, of all men living, he was the
one most capable of giving worthy literary form to his own
addresses.3 If the book, in substance, is from Moses, very
2If so, what dealings? Those in the JE history? It is to be
remembered that, wherever we place Deuteronomy, the JE history, in
substance at least, stands behind it.
2 Nothing necessitates us," says Delitzsch, "to deny the Song to
Moses."— Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 506 ; cf. Genesis, i. p. 45.
3 "In presence," says Delitzsch, "of the Egyptian and Babylonian-
Assyrian written monuments, which likewise contain great connected

266 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
cogent reasons must be shown for putting it, even in its
literary form, at a much later date.
In reality, however, so far as critics of the newer time
are concerned, such a hypothesis as we have been consider
ing is wholly in the air. Possessed of quite other ideas of
what must have been, these writers will hardly entertain
even the possibility, either of Moses having written these
discourses, or of his being able to write them. For them
the Mosaic age is literally, as Duhm says, "wiped out."1
Underlying their refusal of Deuteronomy to Moses will
generally be found the denial that we know anything
definitely at all about Moses, or of his hterary capabilities,
or that he dehvered any testamentary discourses, or that
any of the laws or institutions ordinarily attributed to him
— even the Ten Commandments — are actually of his age.2
In that case, Dehtzsch's hypothesis, with other mediating
views, falls, and we are brought back essentially to the old
alternative. The thorough-paced critic will have nothing
to say to a hypothetical or traditionary basis for a book
admitted to belong in its present shape to the age of
the kings.3 Kuenen will allow no alternative between
" authenticity " and " literary fiction." 4
3. When, finally, from the external attestation, we turn
to the internal character of the book — and it is here the
strength of the critical position is held to he — we find a
series of phenomena which, so far from supporting, throw
very great, if not insuperable, obstacles in the way of its
ascription to the age of Josiah. On these the minifying
end of the critical telescope is persistently turned, while the
oratorical pieces, and represent a form of speech which remained essentially
the same during 1000 years, one need not be disturbed by the high antiquity
of a written production of Moses." — Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 506.
See his testimony to Moses as a poet in Genesis, i. pp. 44-45.
1 Theol. d. Proph. p. 19. See below, p. 286.
8 It is not advanced writers alone that fall into this arbitrary style of
reasoning. Such a reason, e.g., as that assigned even by a believing critic
like Biehm for refusing the Deuteronomic discourses to Moses — "the
spiritual apprehension of the law, as seen in the demand for a circumcision
of the heart " (Einleit. i. pp. 245-46) — belongs to the same a priori, subjective
system of judging of a past age, which scientific investigation is increasingly
discrediting. 8 "The opinion," said De Wette long ago, "that these latter passages
(Deut. xxxi. 9, etc.) refer to a short treatise which has been worked over in
Deuteronomy is quite arbitrary." — Introd. ii. p. 159.
4 Hex. p. 219.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 267
magnifying end is brought to bear in its full power on any
difficulties that seem to tell against an earlier date. We
have to remember that the book, on the critical view, was
composed with the express design of calling into being such
a reformation as that which followed its " discovery " in the
reign of Josiah.1 The proof of its origin in that age is held
to be its suitability to the conditions of the time, and the
stress it lays on the demand for centrahsation of worship.
When, however, we open the book itself, we are forcibly
struck by the absence of clear evidence of any such design
on the part of the author, and by the numerous indications
of ^suitability to the age in which it is believed to have
been composed. The book and the history, in a word, do
not fit each other.
(1) It is extremely doubtful if " centralisation of worship,"
in the critical acceptation of that phrase, was the dominant
motive in Josiah's reformation at all. The idea of the un
lawfulness of worship — even of Jehovah — on high places
need not have been absent ; it had, we believe, been in the
background of men's minds ever since the founding of
Solomon's temple. But it was not that which so strangely
moved Josiah to alarm and action. His reformation from
beginning to end was a crusade against the idolatry which
had everywhere infected Church and state — central sanctuary
included,2 — and the " high places " were put down as part of
this stern suppression of all idolatrous and heathenish
practices. Of a movement for unity of worship as such the
narrative gives not a single hint. On the other hand,
when we look to Deuteronomy, we find little or nothing
that points directly to a consuming zeal against the " high
places" — in Josiah's time the crying sin, because the
chief centres of idolatry, in Judah. There are warnings
against falling into the idolatries and other abominations of
the Canaanites, when the land should be possessed,3 and in
chaps, vii. 5, 25, xii. 2-4, injunctions to " utterly destroy "
the sanctuaries, altars, pillars, Asherahs, and graven images
of these former inhabitants. But there is nothing peculiarly
1 " It was not by accident," Kuenen says, "but in accordance with the
writer's deliberate purpose, that it became the foundation and norm of
Josiah's reformation." — Hex. p. 215. Cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel,
p. 33. 2 Cf. 2 Kings xxiii. 4, 7, 11, 12, etc.
8 Cf. especially chap, xviii. 9 ff.

268 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Josianic in this — it is all there already in the older Book of
the Covenant.1 Still further, while Deuteronomy gives
prominence to the idea of the centralisation of worship at
the sanctuary, it is far from correct to say that this is the
dominating idea of the book — the one grand idea which
inspires it.2 It has its place in chap, xii., and recurs in the
regulations for feasts, tithing, and priestly duty; but the
preceding discourses have nothing to say of it, and in the
Code it appears with a multitude of other laws, some of
them more fundamental than itself. The bulk of the laws
in the book, as will appear below, are taken from the Book
of the Covenant ; others are from a priestly source yet to
be investigated. (2) Here already is a puzzling problem for the critics —
to account for the relevancy of this wide range of laws,
many of them dealing with seemingly trivial matters, in a
book assumed to be specially composed to effect a reforma
tion in worship.3 The irrelevancy of the greater number of
the precepts for such a purpose is obvious at a glance. But
the incongruity of the Code in structure and contents with
the supposed occasion of its origin appears in other respects.
The most favourable view of the book is that it is a corpus
of old laws reproduced in a hortatory setting with special
adaptation to the circumstances of a late time. Yet in
xEx. xx. 3 ff. ; xxii. 18, 20; xxiii. 13, 24, 32, 33; cf. xxxiv. 14-17.
The exception is the sun, moon, and "host of heaven" in Deut. iv. 19,
xvii. 3, founded on by Riehm (i. p. 245) and others. But the worship of
sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies goes far back beyond Moses, and is
alluded to in the Old Testament long before the time of Josiah (Isa. xvii. 8,
R.V. ; Amos v. 26). Cf. Beth-shemesh in Josh. xv. 10, eto.
2 Oettli says : " It rests on an unusual onesidedness in the mode of
consideration, if, as now mostly happens, the aim of Deuteronomy is
restricted to the centralisation of the cultus, and the ordinances of worship
connected with this. That is one of its demands, but it is neither the most
original nor the weightiest, but only an outcome of its deepening of the
thought of the covenant. " — Deut. Introd. p. 21.
8 This is in fact made the starting-point by the newer critics for their
hypothesis of "gradual accretion." "There is no apparent appropriate
ness," we read, " so far as the programme of the Deuteronomic reforms is
concerned, in the historical retrospect, i. 6— iii. But neither is there, for
example, in the laws which regulate birds'-nesting or parapets upon a roof
in xxii. 6-8. With what feelings [one may well ask it] could Josiah have
listened to these details ? ... It is plain that the contents of the Code, at
least in its later portions, are very miscellaneous." — Carpenter, Hex. i.
p. 93. But then, instead of recasting the theory of " programmes " which
thus has the bottom taken out of it, the law-book of Josiah is reduced
practically to chaps, xii. -xix. (p. 95).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 269
point of form everything is thrown back into the age of
Moses. The standpoint of the speaker is the East of Jordan,1
with the prospect of the people's immediately entering
Canaan ; Israel is treated in its unbroken unity as a nation
(" all Israel "), and there is not a hint anywhere of the great
division that, centuries before Josiah's time, had rent the
kingdom into twain, and had ended in the destruction of
one of its branches (Ephraim). What is even more remark
able, the laws frequently are, not only long obsolete, but of
a character ludicrously out of place in a reforming Code of
the end of the seventh century. We need not dwell at
length on these anachronisms of the Code, which have been
so often pointed out,2 — the law, e.g., for the extermination
of the Canaanites,3 when no Canaanites remained to be
exterminated; the injunction to destroy the Amalekites;4
the rules for military service (inapplicable to the later
time),6 for besieging of foreign cities,6 for arrangements in
the camp ; T the warnings against choosing a foreigner for a
king, and causing to return to Egypt,8 the friendly tone
towards Edom,9 so strangely in contrast with the hostile
spirit of the prophets;10 and the like. These things may
seem as the small dust of the balance to the critic,11 but
they may not appear so insignificant to others. Dr.
Driver's answer, that the injunctions against the Canaanites
and Amalekites are repeated from the older legislation, and
"in a recapitulation of Mosaic principles addressed ex
hypothesi to the people when they were about to enter
Canaan, would be naturally included,"12 only corroborates
1 On the expression "the other side Jordan," see below, p. 281.
1 Cf. Delitzsch, Genesis, p. 38 ; Oettli, Deut. Introd. pp. 11, 12, 17 ff.
» Chaps, vii. 1, 2, xx. 10-18.
4 Chap. xxv. 17-19. Dr. Green speaks of these injunctions as being as
utterly out of date as would be at the present day " a royal proclamation in
Great Britain ordering the expulsion of the Danes."— Moses and the Prophets,
p. 63. « Chap. xx. 1-9. 6 Chap. xx. 9-15, 19, 20.
7 Chap, xxiii. 2-9. Imagine these provisions in a Code seven centuries
after Moses.
8 Chap. xvii. 15-16. See Note E on the Law of the King.
• Chap, xxiii. 7, 8.
10 Jer. xlix. 17, 18 ; Obadiah ; Joel iii. 19 ; Isa. lxm. 1-6.
11 Cf. Kuenen, Hex. pp. 218-19. Kuenen has no difficulty, because he
frankly attributes to the author the design to deceive.
12 Deut. p. lxii. Dr. Driver's suggestion that the' injunctions against the
Canaanites would have an indirect value as a protest against heathenish
practices in Judah is without support in the text, which evidently

270 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
our point, that they were suitable to the times of Moses,
but not to those of Josiah. The difficulty is not touched
why a writer in that age should go out of his way to include
them, when they did not bear on his purpose, and had no
relevancy to existing conditions. But even in the matter
of reformation of worship, it is important to observe that
the laws in Deuteronomy were not of a kind that could be,
or were, enforced by Josiah in their integrity. In the Code,
e.g., it is ordained that idolaters of every degree, with all who
secretly or openly entice to idolatry, are to be unsparingly
put to death.1 Josiah, it is true, slew the priests of the
high places of Samaria upon their altars. But he did not
attempt any such drastic measures in Judah. He brought
up, instead, the priests of the high places to Jerusalem, and
allowed them to " eat of the unleavened bread among their
brethren."2 It is one of the most singular instances of
the reading of a preconceived theory into a plain text, when,
in face of the law ordaining death for all idolatry, these
" disestablished priests " of the high places are regarded as
the Levites of Deut. xviii. 8, for whom provision is made
out of the temple dues.3 Of course, there is not a syllable
hinting at " disestablished priests " of the high places in the
provisions of Deuteronomy for the Levites. The latter,
besides, were permitted to minister at the sanctuary, while
Josiah's priests were not.
IV. Critical Reasons for Late Dating of the Book:
Validity of these
It is now incumbent on us, having indicated the
difficulties which seem to us decisive against a late dating
of Deuteronomy, to consider the reasons ordinarily adduced
in favour of that late dating, or at least of the origin of the
book in times long posterior to Moses. We have already
seen that, of those who reject the substantially Mosaic
means them to be taken quite seriously, and does not apply to the
Amalekites, eto.
1 Deut. xiii. 2 2 Kings xxiii. 9.
8 Thus Dr. Driver connects — as if it were a matter of course — Deut.
xviii. 8 with " Josiah's provision made for the support of the disestablished
priests out of the temple dues." — Deut. p. xiv. Cf. Wellhausen : "Ho (the
Deuteronomist) provides for the priests of the suppressed sanctuaries,"
etc. — Hist, of Israel, p. 33.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 2/1
origin of the book, a few place the book earher than
Hezekiah, some put it in the reign of Manasseh, most put it
in the reign of Josiah. It may be found that several, at
least, of the reasons for this late dating turn, on examina
tion, into arguments for the opposite view.
It cannot be too constantly borne in mind, what was
before said, that, with the majority of critics of the Graf-
Wellhausen school, the really determining grounds for the
late dating of Deuteronomy he outside the region of
properly critical discussion altogether, viz., in the com
pletely altered view taken of the age of Moses, and of the
subsequent course of the religious history of Israel. If the
accounts we have of Moses and his work are, as Kuenen
says, " utterly unhistorical," — if it is inconceivable that he
should have had the elevated conceptions or the prophetic
foresight attributed to him in these discourses, — then it
needs no further argument to prove that Deuteronomy must
be late. The date of Deuteronomy is, in this case, no longer
merely a literary question, and the critics are not wrong in
speaking of it, as they have sometimes done, as the pivot of
the Pentateuchal question. It does not, indeed, follow, as
we formerly sought to show, that the Mosaic history and
rehgion are subverted, even if a late date is accepted for the
present form of the book. But very important conclusions
certainly do follow, if the book is admitted to be early. If
Deuteronomy, in its present form, be even substantially
Mosaic, — if it conveys to us with fidelity the purport of
discourses and laws actually delivered by Moses to the
people of Israel before his death, — then we must go a great
deal further. For Deuteronomy undeniably rests in some
degree on the JE history embodied in our Pentateuch ; on
the Code of laws which we call the Book of the Covenant,
incorporated in that history; as well as on priestly laws
from some other source. The effect of the acceptance of an
early date for Deuteronomy, therefore, is to throw all these
writings back practically into the Mosaic age, whatever the
time when they were finally put together. We should like
to be more sure than we are that it is not the perception of
this fact which is at least one motive in leading the critics
to put down Deuteronomy as far as they do, in the age of
the kings.
1. It is important, in this connection, to observe how

272 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES":
much is conceded by the more moderate advocates of the
critical hypothesis themselves. These concessions are very
considerable— so extensive, in fact, that they really amount,
in our view, to the giving up of a large part of the critical
case for the late dating. We have seen how Delitzsch
postulates written "testamentary discourses" and laws of
Moses ; but critics like Oettli and Driver also go a long way
in allowing, in the words of the latter,1 " a continuous Mosaic
tradition," reaching back to Moses' own time, and " embrac
ing a moral, a ceremonial, and a civil element." When,
particularly, the object is to vindicate Deuteronomy against
the charge of " forgery " and " invention," stress is strongly
laid on the fact that the great bulk of the legislation is old,
and that the few laws which are really new are but " the
logical and consistent development of Mosaic principles."2
So far, indeed, is this insistence on the antiquity and
genuinely Mosaic character of the legislation carried — in
striking and favourable contrast with the more radical
tendency to deny all legislation to Moses — that one begins
to wonder where the contradictions with earher law and
practice come in which are to prove indubitably that the
book cannot be Mosaic. Thus we are bid remember " that
what is essentially new in Deuteronomy is not the matter,
but the form."3 Dillmann is quoted as testifying that
"Deuteronomy is anything but an original law-book."4
" The new element in Deuteronomy," it is said, " is not the
laws, but their parenetic setting. . . . [The author's] aim
was to win obedience to laws, or truths, which were already
known, but were in danger of being forgotten." 6 " It was
felt to be (in the main) merely the re-affirmation of laws
and usages which had been long famihar to the nation,
though in particular cases they might have fallen into
neglect." 6 Most significant of all is a sentence quoted from
Reuss: "The only real innovation . . . was the absolute
prohibition of worship outside of Jerusalem."7
Here at length we seem to come to a definite issue.
The " only real innovation " in Deuteronomy is the law of
the central sanctuary. We are not unjustified, therefore, in
1 Deut. p. lvii. Cf. Oettli, Deut. Introd. pp. 17, 18. Delitzsch may he
quoted again : ' ' The claim of Deuteronomy to a Mosaic origin is justified on
internal grounds." — Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 503 ; cf. p. 504.
2 Ibid. p. lvi. » Ibid. 4 Ibid.
5 Ibid. p. lxi. • Ibid. p. lvi. 7 Ibid.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 273
regarding this as the fundamental pillar which upholds the
case for the late dating of Deuteronomy. Even this
law, moreover, it is conceded, is only " relatively " new ; it
was a genuine development from Mosaic principles, and
focalising of tendencies which had long been in operation.1
The natural inference one would draw from this is, that it
cannot be really incompatible with the law in Ex. xx. 24,
with its supposed permission of unlimited freedom of
worship.2 The subject was discussed in an earlier chapter,
to which it is sufficient here to refer.8 The conclusion there
arrived at was that there is nothing in this Deuteronomic
law essentially at variance with the altar-law in Exodus, or
with the later religious practice, if allowance is made for
times of religious backsliding and neglect, and for the
complete disorganisation of an age like Samuel's, when
ecclesiastical and every other kind of laws were necessarily
in large part in abeyance. One fact which should lead
criticism to pause before giving too narrow an interpretation
of the law is that, as before noted, in Deuteronomy itself a
command is given for the building of an altar for sacrifice
on Mount Ebal, in harmony with the law in Exodus.4 We
marked also a tendency in the newer criticism itself to break
with the Wellhausen " dogma " of an absolute centralisation
of worship in Deuteronomy, and a consequent conflict with
the older law in Exodus.5
2. If this fundamental prop of the Wellhausen theory
gives way, as we are persuaded it does, most of the other con
siderations adduced in favour of the late date of Deuteronomy
may fairly be treated as of subordmate importance. They
resolve themselves, partly into alleged discrepancies between
the Deuteronomic laws and those of the Book of the
Covenant, and of the Levitical Code; partly into alleged
1 Deut. p. lvi. 2 See above, pp. 173 ff.
» Chap. VI. pp. 173 ff. 4 Deut. xxvii. 5-7.
" See above, Chap. VI. pp. 174, 176. Fries, in his Moderne Vorstellungen
der Geschichte Israels, speaks of this " dogma " as playing weU-nigh the same
part in the Wellhausen criticism as did formerly "the opposition between
Jewish and Pauline Christianity in the school of Baur in the New Testa
ment domain" (p. 15) ; and Van Hoonacker, in his Le Sacerdoce LCvitique,
says : ' ' The whole historical and critical system of the school of Wellhausen
rests in effect on the pretended first promulgation of the principle of the
unity of the sanctuary in the seventh century " (p. 14). This writer points
out that the unity of the sanctuary is not so much enacted as presupposed
in Deuteronomy (p. 13).
18

274 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
discrepancies with the history of the preceding books ; and
partly into a few expressions in the book thought to imply a
later date than that of Moses. On none of these classes of
objection will it be found necessary to spend much time:
a few typical examples may be examined.
(1) The subject of laws may be glanced at first. In a
previous chapter we endeavoured to show that there is
nothing in Deuteronomy necessarily incompatible with the
Aaronic priesthood and Levitical arrangements of the
middle books of the Pentateuch1 — arrangements now held,
however, by the critical school to be later than Deutero
nomy ; and we shall see as we proceed that, while it was
no part of the design of the speaker in these farewell
addresses to dwell on details of ritual, chiefly of interest to
the priests, yet Levitical regulations are presupposed, and
in some instances are referred to, in his recital.2 As to the
Book of the Covenant, it is allowed on all hands that the
bulk of its provisions are taken up, and reiterated and
enforced in the discourses.8 In such hortatory recapitulation,
where much is left to be understood by the hearer, points of
difficulty in comparison with other Codes may be expected
to arise; but, considering the number of the laws, the
seeming discrepancies must be pronounced very few. In
some cases it may be that we do not possess all the
elements for a complete solution, but there is no reason to
suppose that, if we had them, a solution would not be
forthcoming. A chief example of discrepancy between Deuteronomy
and the Priestly Code — the chief, perhaps, after that of the
priests and Levites 4 — is in the tithe-laws in chaps, xii 6,
17-19, xiv. 22-29, xxvi. 12-15, which certainly present a
different aspect from those in Num. xviii. 21-31.5 In
the latter case the tithe is devoted in fixed proportions to
the maintenance of Levites and priests; in the former, it
is used by the worshippers for two years out of three in
1 Cf. Chap. VI. pp. 180 ff.
3 See below, pp. 311 ff. On the relation of Deuteronomy to the so-called
"Law of Holiness," see next chapter.
8 Lists of comparison of the laws in the Book of the Covenant and in
Deuteronomy may be seen in Driver (Deut. pp. iv ff.), Westphal, Oettli, or
any of the text-books.
4 See above, pp. 184 ff.
8 Cf. on the discrepancy, Kuenen, Hex. pp. 28, 29 ; Driver, Deut. pp.
168 ff.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 275
feasts at the sanctuary, to which the Levites are invited, and
on the third year is given up wholly, at home, to the
Levites, orphans, widows, and strangers. Apart, however,
from the fact that the Levitical provision seems clearly
(indeed, verbally) referred to in chap, xviii. 1, 2,1 it appears,
if better solution does not offer,2 a not unreasonable ex
planation that, in accordance with later Jewish practice, the
• festal tithe of Deuteronomy is different from, and additional
to, the ordinary tithe for the maintenance of the Levites (a
" second tithe ").8 We may perhaps venture the suggestion
that it is really this Deuteronomic tithe which was the old
and traditional one, and the Levitical tithe which was the
second and additional impost. The tithe devoted to
Jehovah probably goes back in pious circles to remotest
times (cf. Gen. xiv. 20 ; xxviii. 22), and then can only be
supposed to have been used in a rehgious feast, or in charity.
This was the old and well-understood voluntary tithe ; the
Levitical had a different object. But if the Deuteronomic
tithe creates difficulty, what is to be said of the counter-
theory of the critics ? Is it really to be credited — for this
is the alternative supposition — that a tithe-law for the
maintenance of the Levites, unknown in the days of Josiah,
first came in with Ezra, yet, though previously unheard
of, was unmurmuringly submitted to by everybody as a law
given in the wilderness by Moses ? *
Minor examples, of discrepancies, as those which relate
to firstlings (chap. xv. 19, 20 ; cf. Num. xviii 17, 18), to
priestly dues (chap, xviii 3, 4), to the treatment of bond-
1 See above, p. 187.
3 Van Hoonacker has here an ingenious, but, as it seems to us, untenable
theory, based on the expression in Deut. xxvi. 12, " the third year, which
is the year of tithing," compared with Amos iv. 4, that the Levitical tithe
of Num. xviii. was not an annual, but a triennial one, and that the yearly
festal tithe of Deuteronomy was a secondary and less strict taxing of
produce, which only improperly got the name tithe (Le Sacerdoce, pp.
384 ff.).
8 Thus in Tob. i. 7 ; Josephus, Antiq. iv. 8. 22 ; LXX in Deut. xxvi. 12.
The explanation does not remove all difficulties, especially the absence of
allusion to the primary tithe. It is to be noticed, however, that the speaker
is here evidently alluding to a custom already established, not (as Dr.
Driver has it), instituting a second tithe for the first time.
4 See below, pp. 296, 319. Seeing that in Deuteronomy also the tribe of
Levi is set aside for sacred service, and has therefore no inheritance with the
other tribes, is it conceivable that no provision should be made for the tribe
but these rare feasts at the sanctuary, or every third year ? Do*" '•tap. xviii
1, 2 not suggest a different view?

276 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES :
servants (chap. xv. 12 ; cf. Ex. xxi. 1-6), to the law of carrion
(chap. xiv. 21 ; cf. Lev. xvii. 15), seem capable of reasonable
explanation.1 A few modifications on older" laws are made
in view of the altered circumstances of settlement in Canaan,
notably the permission to kill and eat flesh at home (Deut.
xii 15), in room of the wilderness requirement that all
slaying for food should be at the door of the tabernacle (cf.
Lev. xvii. 3 ff.).
(2) There are alleged, next, certain historical discrepancies,
some of them, we cannot but think, instructive examples
of that Widerspruchsjagerei — "hunting for contradictions" —
which Delitzsch not unjustly ascribes to the school of Well
hausen.2 The opponents of the unity of Deuteronomy find
numerous inconsistencies in the different parts of the book
itself (e.g., between chaps, v.-xi. and xii-xxvi, or between
chaps, i-iv. and v.-xxvi) ; but these the critical defenders of
the unity find means of satisfactorily explaining.8 A slight
extension of the same skill, we are persuaded, would
enable them to dispose as satisfactorily of most of the
others. On the general relation to the preceding history,
it is agreed on all hands that the retrospects in Deuteronomy
presuppose the narratives of JE, and reproduce them with
substantial fidelity.4 The Wellhausen school, in accordance
with its principles, denies any similar dependence on the P
sections of the history ; 6 but this it is difficult to maintain
in view of the considerable number of references to par
ticulars, and turns of expression, found only in P. Only in
P., e.g., is there mention of Moses and Aaron being debarred
from Canaan as a punishment ; 6 of " seventy " as the number
who went down to Egypt ; 7 of " twelve " as the number of the
1 See Note E on Minor Discrepancies in Laws.
2 Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 623.
8 Cf. Kuenen (against Wellhausen), Hex. pp. 113 ft ; Driver, Deut. pp.
lxviii ff. etc.
4 Driver represents the general view in saying that Deuteronomy "is
demonstrably dependent upon JE " (p. xix ; of. p. xv). Some assume a
closer dependence on E than on J, but this depends on what is attributed to
E, and what to J. Westphal, e.g., as before noticed, gives the Book of the
Covenant to J ; Dillmann and Kuenen give it to E. Dillmann, on the other
hand, gives the story of the golden calf (Ex. xxxii.) to J; Westphal and
others give it to E.
6 Ibid. p. xvi.
8 Num. xx. 12 ; xxvii. 13 ff. ; Deut. xxxii. 50 ff. Cf. Deut, i. 37 ; iii
26 ; iv. 21.
7 Gen. xlvi. 27 ; Ex. i. 5. Cf. Deut x. 22.

THE QUESTlbN OF DEUTERONOMY 277
spies;1 of the making of the ark of acacia wood.2 The
words, "Since the day that God created man upon the
earth," in chap. iv. 32, seem a verbal reference to Gen. i. 26,
27 ; and there are numerous phraseological assonances with
P in this fourth chapter, — "belonging usually to P," says
Carpenter, — " suggesting occasional contact with the school
that produced P,"8 — and later, as "horses and chariots,"
" hard bondage," " stretched-out arm," etc. (only in P).4 In
no case, however, is there slavish dependence on the letter
of the history.6 The speaker deals with his materials with
the freedom and intimate knowledge of one who had been a
chief actor in the events he recounts ; amplifies, abbreviates
supplies fresh details ; groups according to subject rather
than time ; passes by swift association to related topics. It
is this which in a few instances gives rise to the appearance
of what the critics are pleased to call "contradictions."
Instead of telling against the genuineness of the book, they
constitute, to our mind, one of the most convincing internal
evidences of its genuineness. For what later composer,
with the JE history before him, would have allowed himself
these freedoms, or have wilfully laid himself open to the
charge of " contradiction " of his sources ? 6
But what, taken at their utmost, do these "contra
dictions " amount to ? We shall glance at a few of the chief
cases. It is to be borne in mind that the question here is
not, whether Moses wrote personally the JE or P sections
of the Pentateuch, but whether there is such contradiction
with these as to forbid us ascribing the discourses in
Deuteronomy to Moses as their speaker. We do not
disprove, e.g., the Mosaic character of the discourses by
1 Num. xiii. 2-10. Cf. Deut. i. 23. See below, p. 279.
2 Ex. xxxvii. 1. Cf. Deut. x. 3. The critical view is that JE also had a
story of the making of the ark.
8 Hex. ii. p. 254.
4 Deut. xi. 4 ; xxvi. 6 (cf. Ex. i. 14) ; iv. 34, etc. Cf. Driver, Deut. pp.
xvii, lxxi. ¦*
5 Graf concludes from the freedom of reproduction that the author draws
from oral tradition and not from written sources. Geschicht. Bilcher,
P- 13. 6 Unless, indeed, the reader is prepared to accept for the Deuteronomist
the patronising apology of Colenso : "He treats them [the statements of
the older narrative] often with great freedom, and sometimes in a way which
shows that, though generally familiar with that document, he was not so
thoroughly at home with it as a devout English reader of the Pentateuch
would be." — Pent. Pt. vi. p. 27.

278 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
showing, e.g., that the P sections are not directly, or at all,
from Moses' pen.
A first instance of discrepancy is, that in Deuteronomy
(i. 9 ff.) Moses reminds the people how, with their consent,
he appointed judges over them; in Ex. xviii. we are told
that this plan was originally suggested to Moses by Jethro.
We submit that there is not here the shadow of a real
difficulty? Can it be supposed that the composer of the
book, whoever he was, imagined that there was any conflict ?
Yet this is one of two " discrepancies " which Dr. Driver
allows "are not absolutely incompatible"1 with Moses'
authorship. The other is, that in Deuteronomy (i 22, 23)
the people ask that spies be sent to search the land, while
in Num. xiii. 1 (P), Jehovah gives the order for the mission.
" Not absolutely incompatible " !
As an example of a discrepancy held to be irreconcilable
with Mosaic authorship, we take the passages relating to
Jehovah's anger against Moses, and the prohibition to
enter Canaan. " In Num. xx. 12 (cf. xxvii. 13 ff. ; Deut. xxxii.
50 ff.)," we are told, " Moses is prohibited to enter Canaan on
account of his presumption in striking the rock at Kadesh,
in the thirty-ninth year of the Exodus ; here (Deut. i.
37, 38 ; iii. 26 ; iv. 21), the ground of the prohibition is
Jehovah's anger with him on account of the people, upon an
occasion which is plainly fixed by the context for the
second year of the Exodus, thirty-seven years previously."2
We invite the reader to compare carefully the passages, and
judge for himself whether there is any real basis for this
assertion. In three places in his address, Moses refers to
his exclusion from Canaan, and in one of them tells of his
pleading with Jehovah (fixed in the fortieth year, chap. iii.
23) to have the sentence reversed. The narrative of this
exclusion is given at length in Numbers, with the rebellion
of the people that led to it, and the permission to view the
land alluded to in Deut. iii. 27 (cf. Num. xxvii. 12, 13).
It is surely only the hyper-acute sense of a critic that can
see in the words "for your sakes," which evidently refer
to the provocation of the people that occasioned the
offence of Moses (Num. xx. 2 ff.), a "contradiction" of
the statement that he, with Aaron, personally sinned at
Meribah (Num. xx. 10); while the assertion that the
1 Deut. p. xxxvii. 2 Ibid. p. xxxv.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 279
incident is " plainly fixed " in Deut. i 37 in the second year
of the Exodus is a " plain " misreading of the text. Moses
is speaking in the context of the exclusion of that older
generation from Canaan, and by a natural association he
alludes in passing to how the rebellious spirit of the living
generation had brought a similar sentence of exclusion on
himself. The discourses are full of such rapid transitions,
determined not by chronology, but by the connection of the
thought. Cf., e.g., chap. i. 9, where the discourse turns back
to events a year before the command in ver. 6 ; chap. ii. 1, 2,
where there is a leap over thirty-seven or thirty-eight years ;
chaps. ix.,x., where x. 1 resumes, with the words "at that time,"
the transactions at Horeb, left far behind in chap. ix. 22 ff.
The mission of the spies, alluded to above, is itself a
fruitful source of " contradictions," occasioned, however,
mainly by the merciless way in which the narrative in
Numbefs is torn up.1 The incident will be examined in
detail in a future chapter ; 2 only the main point, therefore,
need be anticipated here. Deuteronomy, it is said, follow
ing JE, knows nothing of Joshua as one of the spies, and
represents the search party, in contrast with P, as pro
ceeding only as far as Eshcol (chap, i 24, 25). Yet Deutero
nomy knows of the choosing of- " twelve " spies, " one
of a tribe," as in Num. xiii. 2 (P), where Joshua is included
in the list (ver. 8) ; and the statement in Deut. i 38 that
Joshua (as well as Caleb, ver. 36) would enter the land,
connects most naturally with the promise given in Num.
xiv. 30.8 If the letter in JE is pressed to mean that
Caleb only was to enter the land, it would seem to
exclude Joshua, not only from the number of the spies,
but from Canaan, which cannot be the meaning. In the
JE narrative also it is clearly imphed, as will be afterwards
1 The critical analysis of Num. xiii.-xiv. certainly results in a mass of con
tradictions (see below, pp. 356 ff. ). Addis says of the JE parts : " Attempts
have been made to separate the component documents. . . . But the task
seems to be hopeless, and there is nothing like agreement in results." —
Hex. i. p. 165.
2Cf. Chap. X. pp. 356 ff.
8 Dillmann and Kittel take Joshua to be included among the spies in
the J narrative, but not in the E narrative — a distinction that falls, if JE
are one, and at any rate is an acknowledgment of the inclusion of Joshua
in the combined JE story. Cf. Dillmann, Num.-Jos. p. 69, and on
Num. xxvi. 65 ; xxxii. 12, pp. 177, 195 ; Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. p. 201.
See below, p. 357.

280 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
seen, that the spies, or some of them (for there surely were
several parties ; they did not all march in a body), went
through the whole land (Num. xiii. 28, 29).
The last-named instance is one of several involving the
question of the possibility of an acquaintance of Deutero
nomy with the P history. The denial of such acquaintance
is founded in part on the mention of Dathan and Abiram,
and the silence about Korah, in chap. xi. 6.1 Here, it is
concluded, the mention of Korah is omitted because he
had no place in the JE narration. This, however, we
would point out, does not necessarily follow. Apart from
the question of " sources " in Num. xvi., it is evident that,
in the combined uprising there narrated, Dathan and
Abiram represented the general spirit of murmuring in
the congregation (vers. 12-15), while Korah stood for the
Levites, in their aspiration after the privileges of the priest
hood (vers. 8-11). This of itself is sufficient reason why Moses,
in his addresB to the people, should refer only to the former.2
A more definite "contradiction" — likewise implicated
with intricate questions of analysis — is in the brief notice
of Aaron's death, and of the journeyings of the people in
chap. x. 6, 7, as compared with the notice in the hst of
stations in Num. xxxiii. In Deuteronomy, Aaron is stated
to have died at Moserah, while his death is placed in
Numbers (ver. 38) at Mount Hor ; in Deuteronomy, four
stations are mentioned in the journeyings (Bene-Jaakan,
Moserah, Gudgodah, Jotbathah), but in Numbers (vers.
31, 32) the first two are named in inverse order. Moserah,
however, as we discover from comparison, was in the
immediate neighbourhood of Hor, and there is evidence
in the list in Numbers itself that after wandering southwards
to Eziongeber, at the Red Sea, and turning again north
wards, the people returned in the fortieth year from Kadesh
to the district of Mount Hor, where Aaron died (vers. 35-39 ;
cf. Num. xx.). The old camping spots would then be
revisited, as stated in Deuteronomy. The mention of
these places may thus be regarded rather as an un-
1 On this incident, see below, pp. 358-9.
2 It must be allowed that great suspicion attaches to the clause — " of
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram" — in Num. xvi. 24, 27, in the connection in
which it stands with mishkan (dwelling), which everywhere else in these
narratives is the designation of the tabernacle (not of an ordinary tent).
Cf. Strack, in loc.

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 281
designed corroboration of the accuracy of the list in
Numbers.1 Finally, a word should perhaps be said on the alleged
"contradiction" between the law in Ex. xxi. 12-14,
and the Deuteronomic appointment of three cities of
refuge (chap. iv. 41-43 ; cf. xix. 1 ff.). The asylum in the
older law, Wellhausen argues, is the altar ; now " in order
not to abolish the right of asylum along with altars [mark
the change to the plural], he [the Deuteronomist] appoints
special cities of refuge for the innocent who are pursued
by the avenger of blood." 2 It is a little difficult to under
stand how anyone could hope to persuade the people of
Josiah's age that three cities of refuge had been appointed
by Moses (three more afterwards) when, ex hypothesi, they
knew perfectly well that up to their day no such cities
existed. The whole objection, however, is largely a creation
of the critic's fancy, as shown by the fact that the future
appointment of a place of refuge for the manslayer is
provided for in the very law of Exodus to which appeal is
made (chap. xxi. 13).
3. For the above reasons we cannot allow that a case
has been made out on the ground of discrepancies in laws
and history for denying the Deuteronomic discourses to the
great lawgiver with whose name they are connected.
When these are set aside, there remain as proofs of post-
Mosaic origin chiefly incidental expressions, as " other side
of (or beyond) Jordan," "unto this day," and the like.
The first of these expressions — "other side of Jordan" —
is much relied on, as showing that the standpoint of the
author of the book was the Western side of Jordan.3 If we
have not hitherto taken notice of this favourite argument,
it is principally because, after the fairest consideration we
1 The supposition that, according to JE, the Israelites stuck immovably
like limpets on a rock to Kadesh for thirty-eight years, is against common
sense, and can only be made out by tearing the narrative to pieces. Even then,
the command to the Israelites in JE, "Turn ye, and get you into the
wilderness by the way of the Bed Sea " (Num. xiv. 25), implies intervening
wanderings, as in Num. xxxiii. In the beginning of the fortieth year (not
the third, as Bleek), the Israelites are found again at Kadesh (chap. xx. 1 ;
cf. Dillmann, in loc. ). Criticism rejects the thirty-eight years' wanderings, but
in contradiction to all the sources, J E D P. Cf. Kittel's remarks, Hist, oj
Hebs. i. pp. 231-32.
2 Hist, of Israel, p. 33 ; cf. W. B. Smith, O.T. in J. C, p. 354,
8 Cf. Driver, Deut. pp. xiii ff.

282 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
have been able to give it, it seems to us to have extremely
little force. So far as the expression occurs in the frame
work of the book (e.g., chap, i 1, 5), it occasions little
difficulty, but it may appear to be different when it is found
in the discourses themselves. It does occur there, but (as
also in the framework) with an application both to the
Eastern (chap, hi 8), and, more commonly, to the Western
(chaps, iii. 20, 25 ; xi. 30), sides of the Jordan.1 Very generally
there is some determinative elause attached, to show which
side is meant — " beyond Jordan, toward the sunrising " (chap.
iv. 41, 46), " eastward " (ver. 49), " behind the way of the
going down of the sun " (chap. xi. 30), etc. It is most natural
to conclude that the phrase " beyond Jordan " was a current
geographical designation for the Moabite side of the river ;
but that, along with this, there went a local usage, deter
mined by the position of the speaker.2 Far more reasonably
may we argue from the minute and serious care of the writer
in his geographical and chronological notices in the intro
duction to the discourses and elsewhere, that he means his
book to be taken as a genuine record of the last utterances
of the lawgiver.
It may be serviceable at this stage to sum up the
conclusions to which the discussions in this chapter have
conducted us.
1. The discovery of " the book of the law " in Josiah's
day was a genuine discovery, and the book then found was
already old.
2. The age of Manasseh was unsuitable for the com
position of Deuteronomy, and there is no evidence of its
composition in that age. The ideas of Deuteronomy no
1 Num. xxxii. 19 is a remarkable case of the use of the phrase in both
senses in a single verse. Dr. Driver explains the passage, not very con
vincingly, by an " idiom " ; and accounts for Deut. iii. 20, 25 by the assumed
position of the speaker, which, he thinks, by a lapse, is forgotten in ver. 8,
where the real situation is betrayed. We may, however, pretty safely clear
the writer of Deuteronomy from the suspicion of such unconscious " be
trayals " of his position.
2 When Dr. Driver says: "It is of course conceivable that this was a
habit of the Canaanites, but it can hardly be considered likely that the
usage suggested by it passed from them to the Israelites, before the latter
had set foot in the land," etc. (p. xliii), he seems to forget that the fathers
of the Israelites had lived for at least two centuries in Canaan, and that the
traditions and hopes of the people were all bound up with it (cf. their words
for "West," etc.).

THE QUESTION OF DEUTERONOMY 283
doubt lay behind Hezekiah's reformation, but there is no
evidence of the presence of the book, or of its composition, at
or about that time. Had it been newly composed, or then
appeared for the first time, we should have expected it to
make a sensation, as it did afterwards in the time of Josiah
The question also would again arise as to its Mosaic claim,
and the acknowledgment of this by Hezekiah and his circle.
3. From Hezekiah upwards till at least the time of the
Judges, or the immediately post-Mosaic age, there is no
period to which the composition of the book can suitably
be referred, nor is there any evidence of its composition in
that interval. Traces of its use may be thought to be found
in the revision of Joshua, in speeches like those of Solomon
(1 Kings viii.), in Amaziah's action (2 Kings xiv. 5, 6), and
in allusions in the early prophets.1 But this we do not at
present urge.
4. The book definitely gives itself out as a reproduction
of the speeches which Moses delivered in the Arabah of
Moab before his death, and expressly declares that Moses
wrote his addresses (" this law "), and gave the book into
custody of the priests.
5. The internal character of the book, in its Mosaic stand
point, its absence of reference to the division of the kingdom,
and the archaic and obsolete character of many of its laws,
supports the claim to a high antiquity and a Mosaic origin.
6. The supposition that Deuteronomy is " a free repro
duction," or elaboration, of written addresses left by Moses,
by one who has fully entered into his spirit, and continues
his work, while not inadmissible, if the facts are shown to
require it, is unnecessary, and, in view of the actual character
of the book, not probable. The literary gifts of Moses were
amply adequate to the writing of his own discourses in their
present form. This is not to deny editorial revision and
annotation. 7. There are no conclusive reasons in the character of
the laws or of the historical retrospects for denying the
authorship of the discourses, in this sense, to Moses.
8. It seems implied in Deut. xxxi. 9, 24-26, that
Deuteronomy originally subsisted as a separate book. It
may have done so for a longer or shorter period, and separate
copies may have continued to circulate, even after its union
J See below, pp. 323 ff.

284 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
with the other parts of the Pentateuch.1 It was probably
a separate authentic copy which was deposited in the temple,
and was found there by Hilkiah.
9. It is possible, as some have thought, that the JE Penta
teuchal history may originally have contained a brief account
of the testamentary discourses of Moses, and of his death
(cf. the fragment, chap, xxxi 14, 15, 23). This would be
superseded when Deuteronomy was united with the rest of
the Pentateuch.
10. The historical laws and narratives which Deutero
nomy presupposes must, in some form, have existed earlier
than the present book, if not earlier than the delivery of the
discourses. These also, therefore, are pushed back, in
essentials, into the Mosaic age. They need not, however,
have been then completed, or put together in their present
shape ; or may only have furnished the basis for our present
narratives. The relation of Deuteronomy to the Priestly Writing has
yet to be considered.
Note. — Steuernagel's Theory of Deuteronomy: A word
should perhaps be said on the novel theory of Deuteronomy
expounded by C. Steuernagel in his work, Deuteronomium und
Josua (1900). Discarding, with much else (as the depend
ence of Deuteronomy on the Book of the Covenant), the
view of a division of the Book into hortatory and legal
portions, Steuernagel contends for a division, as it were
transversely, into sections, distinguished respectively by the
use of the singular ("thou," "thy," etc.) and the plural
(" ye," " your," etc.) numbers (Sg and PI). These sections
(PI being itself highly composite) were united in the pre-
Josianic period, and subsequently underwent extensive
enlargements and redactional changes. It is difficult not
to regard this -theory as another instance of misplaced in
genuity. The use of singular and plural affords no sufficient
ground for extinguishing different authors. The nation
addressed as " thou " was also a " ye," and there is a free
transition throughout from the one mode of speech to the
other, often within the limits of the same verse or para
graph (cf., e.g., Deut. i 31 ; iv. 10, 11 ; 25, 26 ; 34-36 ; vi.
1-3 ; 17, 18 ; viii. 1, 2 ; 19, 20 ; ix. 7 ; xi. 12, 13, etc.).
1 See below, p. 376. ,

CHAPTER IX
Dffllcultfes ano perplexities of tbe Crfttcal 1bgpo=
tbests; Zbc ftriestlg Writing. 3F. Ubc Cobe

us

"Nothing in fact is simpler than the Grafian hypothesis: it needs only
the transference of a single source — the collection of laws named commonly
the Grundschrift, by others the Book of Origins, the Writing of the Older
Elohist, or of the Annalist, whioh we would call the Book of Priestly Law
or Religion — into the post-exilian time, into the period of Ezra and
Nehemiah, and at one stroke the 'Mosaic' period is wiped out." — Duhm.
"I have specially drawn attention to the fact that one result of these
criticisms must inevitably be that, for all those who are convinced of the
substantial truth of the above results, the whole ritualistic system, as a
system of divine institution, comes at once to the ground. . . . The whole
support of this system is struck away, when it is once ascertained that the
Levitical legislation of the Pentateuch is entirely the product of a very
late age, a mere figment of the post-captivity priesthood." — Colenso.
"But, if we place at the head of their whole history [the Hebrew
nation's] a great positive aot of the will, a legislation by which the natural
development is forestalled, and its course prescribed, we account for the rise
of that discrepancy [the sense of guilt, consciousness of departure from the
known will of God] and the peculiar tone of the national character among
the Hebrews." — De Wette (against Vatke).
" But again the questioning spirit revives when one is asked to believe
that Moses is partly at least a historic figure. Alas ! how gladly would one
believe it I But where are the historical elements? . . . No one can now be
found to doubt that Sargon is a historical personage with mythic accretions.
But can one really venture to say the like of Moses ?" — Cheyne.

CHAPTER IX
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITI
CAL HYPOTHESIS: THE PRIESTLY WRITING.
I. THE CODE
It was indicated in our sketch of the critical development
that the greatest revolution in Pentateuchal criticism up
to the present has been the acceptance by the majority of
scholars of the Graf-Wellhausen contention that the legisla
tion of the middle books of the Pentateuch, instead of being,
as was formerly all but universally supposed, the oldest,
is in reality the very youngest of the constituent elements
in that composite work — not, as it professes to be, a creation
of the work of Moses, but a production of priestly scribes
in exilian and post-exilian times. Up to the appearance of
Graf's work on The Historical Books of the Old Testament in
1866, as was then pointed out, though earher writers like
Von Bohlen, George, and Vatke had advocated the idea,
and Reuss, Graf's teacher, had been inculcating it in his
class-room at Strassburg,1 the hypothesis of a post-exilian
origin of the law had met with no general acceptance. De
Wette repudiated it;2 Bleek declared it to be "decidedly
false to hold with Vater, Von Bohlen, Vatke, and George,
that Deuteronomy, with the laws it contains, is older than
the foregoing books with their legislation " ; 8 even Kuenen,
in 1861, pronounced its grounds to be " not worthy of refuta
tion." * Since the publication of Graf's book, the tide has
1 On Reuss, see below, p. 288.
3 Introd. ii. p. 143. Similarly Ewald.
* Com. on Deut., Introd. p. 107.
4 See quotation from Kuenen in full in Note A. Nearly the only writer
who seems to have had a glimpse into the possibilities of George's view was
Hengstenberg, who wrote : ' ' The view maintained by De Wette, that
Deuteronomy was the latest of all, the topstone of the mythical structure,
which at one time seemed to have won universal acceptance, begins now to
yield to the exactly opposite opinion, that Deuteronomy is the most ancient

288 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES: x
decisively turned, and the previously rejected theory has
now become the dominant (though by no means the
universally-accepted) hypothesis among critical scholars.
There are many reasons, apart from the skill and
plausibihty with. which its case has been presented, which
account for the fascination of this theory for minds that
have already yielded assent to the previous critical develop
ments. It is not without justice, as we shall by and by see,
that the claim is made for the Wellhausen hypothesis that
it is the logical outcome of the whole critical movement
of last century. A chief value of the theory is that, by the
very starthngness of its conclusions, it compels a halt, and
summons to a reconsideration of the long course by which
its results have been reached.
I. Gkaf- Wellhausen Theory of the Priestly Code
We shall best begin, by sketching more fully than has
yet been done the Graf-Wellhausen position. The problem
relates, as said, to the age and character of that large body
of laws found in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, which
forms the kernel of the writing described by the critics
as the Priestly Code. Whereas formerly this Levitical
legislation was held to be at least older than Deuteronomy,
and probably in its main parts Mosaic,1 the newer theory
supposes it to be the work of scribes in the exile, or after.
It is not, indeed, contended, as we shall find, that everything
in the Code was absolutely the creation of that time.2
There had been, of course, a temple, priesthood, religious
institutions, sacrificial ritual, priestly rules and technique.
Still the law, as elaborated in the exile, was practically a
new thing. What belonged to the practice of a previous
age was taken up, transformed, had a new meaning put into
it, was brought under new leading ideas, was developed and
among all the books of the Pentateuch." — Gen. of Pent. i. p. 58 (he refers
to George's work).
1 Thus, e.g., Bleek, Introd. i. pp. 212 ff.
* Cf. Graf, as above, p. 93 ; Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. pp. 96, 192. (But
see below, p. 291.) Reuss, on this point, does not go so far as some of his
successors. He says : " It is self-evident that the existence of a Levitical
tradition in relation to ritual, as early as the days of the kings, cannot be
denied ; we cannot speak, however, of a written, official, and sacred codex
of this kind." — Geschichte der HeU. Schriften A.T. i. p. 81 (in Ladd, i. p. 530).
See below, pp. 300 ff.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 289
enlarged by new rites and institutions. Above all, in order
to clothe it with a Mosaic character, and secure for it the
necessary authority, old and new alike were thrown back
into the age of Moses and the wilderness, and were represented
as originating and being put into force there. This Mosaic
dress was a fiction. The elaborate descriptions of the
tabernacle and its arrangements, the dispositions of the camp
in the wilderness, the accounts of the consecration of Aaron
and his sons, of the choice and setting apart of the Levites,
of the origin of the passover, etc. — all was a " product of
imagination." x
The idea of the Code was not wholly original. The first
conception and sketch of a Priestly Code was in Ezekiel's
vision of the restored temple in the closing chapters of his
book.2 The scheme of the scribes, however, was not that
of Ezekiel, but was independently wrought out. A chief
feature borrowed from the prophet's programme was the
idea of the Levites as a class of temple servants subordinate
to the priests. It will be seen below 3 how, in Ezek. xliv.,
the law is laid down that the priests who had gone
astray into idolatry were to be degraded from their priestly
office, and made servants in the sanctuary. Only the
Zadokites, who had remained faithful, were to retain their
priestly dignity. This, according to the theory, is the origin
of the class of Levites. The priests thus degraded were, it
is contended, the " disestabhshed priests " of the high places,
for whom some sort of provision had to be made. We are
called to trace here a development. Deuteronomy had, it is
alleged, allowed such " disestablished priests " the full
rights of priesthood when they came up to the temple;
Ezekiel degrades them to the rank known afterwards as
Levites: now the Priests' Code gives them a permanent
standing in the sanctuary, and represents them as always
having had this secondary position, and as having been
originally honourably set apart by Jehovah for His service
in the wilderness. The Israelites being thus organised as
a hierarchy — " the clergy the skeleton, the high priest the
head, and the tabernacle the heart " * — liberal provision is
1 Cf. Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. pp. 171, etc.
3 Ezek. xl. etc. * See below, pp. 315 ff.
* Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 127. Cf. p. 8 : " The Mosaic theocracy,
with the tabernacle at its. centre, the high priest at its head, the priests
and Levites as its organs, ths legitimate cultus as its popular functioM."
19

290 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES :
made for the sacred body. Tithes, hitherto unknown for
such a purpose, are appointed for the support of the priests
and Levites, and the priestly revenues are otherwise greatly
enlarged. Forty-eight cities, with pasturages,1 are — only,
of course, on paper — set apart for the Levitical order. The
sacrificial system, now centrahsed in the tabernacle, is
enlarged, and recast in its provisions. Sin- and trespass-
offerings (the sin-offering is held by Wellhausen to appear
first in Ezekiel) 2 are introduced ; a cycle of feasts is estab
lished, with new historical meanings; an annual day of
atonement — previously unheard of — is instituted. Sacrifice
loses its older joyous character, and becomes an affair of the
priesthood — a ritual of atonement, with associations of
gloom.8 Still better to facilitate the introduction of this novel
scheme, a history is invented to suit it. In its preparatory
part in Genesis, this history goes back to the creation, and
is marked in the patriarchal period by the rigid exclusion
of all sacrifices;* in the Mosaic part, there is the freest
indulgence in the invention of incidents, lists, genealogies,
numbers, etc. All this, if we accept Wellhausen's view,
was, some time before the coming of Ezra to Jerusalem in
458 B.C., put together in Babylon ; was afterwards combined
with the previously existing JE and D, which knew nothing
of such legislation, and indeed in a multitude of ways
contradicted it ; finally, in 444 B.C., as related in Neh. viii.,
was produced and read by Ezra to the people, was accepted
by them, and became thenceforth the foundation of post-
exilie rehgion. Precisely at this crucial point, however, a
serious divergence of opinion reveals itself in the school.
According to Wellhausen, it was the completed Pentateuch,
substantially, that was brought by Ezra to Jerusalem, and
read by him to the people ; 6 according to perhaps the
majority of his followers, it was only the Priests' Code that
was then made known, and the combination with JE and D
1 The Levitical cities are held by Wellhausen to be a transformation of
the old bamoth or high places. — Ibid. pp. 37-38, 162.
3 Ibid. p. 75.
8 Ibid. p. 81 : "No greater contrast could be conceived than the monoto
nous seriousness of the so-called Mosaic worship. " Delitzsch and others have
shown the groundlessness of this allegation.
4 See above, p. 156.
8 " Substantially at least Ezra's law-book must be regarded as practically
identical with our Pentateuch." — Ibid. p. 497. Cf. p. 404.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 291
did not take place till later, after new redactions and
developments of the Code.1 Wellhausen, who retains his
opinion, argues convincingly that the narrative (cf. Neh.
ix.) clearly requires that the book should be the whole
Pentateuch ; 2 the others as triumphantly ask how Codes of
laws, which ex hypothesi were in flat contradiction of each
other, could simultaneously be brought forward with any hope
of acceptance ! We agree that neither set of critics succeeds
in answering the others' reasons.
Such, in barest outline, is the nature of the scheme
which is to take the place of the " traditional " view of the
Mosaic origin of the Levitical legislation. It will, we
venture to predict, be to future generations one of the
greatest psychological puzzles of history how such a
hypothesis, loaded, as we beheve it to be, with external
and internal incredibilities, should have gained the remark
able ascendency it has over so many able minds. It is a
singular tribute to the genius of Wellhausen that he should
have been able to secure this wide acceptance for his theory,
and to make that appear to his contemporaries as the
highest wisdom which nearly all his predecessors scouted
as the extreme of folly. His feat is hardly second to that
of Ezra himself, who, on this new showing, succeeded in
imposing on his generation the belief that a complex system
of laws and institutions had been given by Moses, and had
been in operation since the days of that lawgiver, though,
till the moment of his own promulgation, nothing had been
heard of them by anyone present ! 8
1 For a sketch of these supposed developments after 444 B.O., cf. Kuenen,
Hex. pp. 302 ff. ; Professor W. Robertson Smith, 0. T. in J. C. , Note F. Pro
fessor Smith differs again in thinking that "the Priestly Code has far too
many points of contact with the actual situation at Jerusalem, and the actual
usage of the second temple [?], to lend plausibility to the view that it was
an abstract system evolved in Babylonia, by someone who was remote from
the contemporary movement at Jerusalem ; but, on the other hand, its author
must have stood . . . outside the petty local entanglements that hampered
the Judsean priests" (pp. 448-49). He holds that to conjecture "that Ezra
was himself the author of the Priests' Code is to step into a region of
purely arbitrary guesswork" (p. 449). Thus the theories eat up each
other. 2 Professor H. P. Smith gets rid of Ezra and the narrative altogether.
Cf. below, p. 295.
8 ' ' They were not, "says Kuenen, ' ' laws which had been long in existence,
and which were now proclaimed afresh and accepted by the people, after
having been forgotten for a while. The priestly ordinances were made known
and imposed upon the Jewish nation now for the first time. As we have

292 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:

II. Initial Incredibilities of the Theory
There are, it seems to us, three huge incredibilities which
attach to this theory of the origin of the Levitical legislation,
and to these, at the outset, as illustrative of the difficulties
in which the modern criticism involves itself, we would refer.
1. There is no mistaking in this case the serious nature
of the moral issue. In the case of " the book of the law "
brought to light in Josiah's reign, there is at least always
open the assumption of a literary artifice which involved
no dishonest intention on the part of the writer. Here,
on the other hand, there can be no evading of the meaning
of the transaction. What we have is the deliberate con
struction of an elaborate Code of laws with the express
design of passing it off upon the people in the name of
Moses. It is not a sufficient reply to urge that much in
the law was simply the codification of pre-exilian usage.
A codification of ancient law — if that were all that was
meant — even though it involved some degree of re-editing
and expansion, is a process to which no one could reasonably
take exception, provided it were proved that it had actually
taken place.1 But though this notion is, as we shall see, a
good deal played with, the Wellhausen theory is assuredly
not fairly represented, when, with a view to turn the edge
of an objection, it is spoken of as mainly a work of " codifica
tion." The very essence of the theory, as Kuenen and
Wellhausen expound it, is, that in all that gives the Priestly
Code its distinctive character, it is something entirely new.2
There never, e.g., existed such an ark or tabernacle as the
Code describes with minute precision. The tabernacle is
seen, no written ritual legislation yet existed in Ezekiel's time," etc. — Rel.
of Israel, ii. p. 231. Cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 408.
1 Few of the critics of the Wellhausen hypothesis object, within reasonable
limits, to a theory of codification, but treat it as a question of evidence. Cf.
Robertson's Early Religion of Israel, p. 394. It already goes beyond codi
fication when the object is to stamp pre-existing usage with a divine
sanction. 3 According to Wellhausen, the Code was not only not in operation, but
"it did not even admit of being carried into effect in the conditions that
prevailed previous to the exile." — Hist, of Israel,^. 12. " The idea that the
Priests' Code was extant before the exile," says Kautzsch, "could only be
maintained on the assumption that no man knew of it, not even the spiritual
leaders of the people, such as the priests Jeremiah and Ezekiel." — Lit. of
O.T., p. 116.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 293
a pure fiction, obtained by halving the dimensions of the
temple, and making it portable.1 There never was a choice
of Aaron and his sons to be priests, or a separation of the
Levites to be ministers to the priests. There never was a
tithe system for the support of priests and Levites ; there
never were Levitical cities; there never were sin- and
trespass-offerings, or a day of atonement, such as the Code
prescribes; there never were feasts having the historical
origin and reference assigned to them in the law. These
institutions were not only not Mosaic, but they never
existed at all; and the constructors of this Code knew it, for
they were themselves the inventors. This cannot be evaded
by saying, as is sometimes done, that it was a well-recognised
custom to attribute all new legislation to Moses. For first,
apart from the singular problem which this raises for the
critics who attribute no laws to Moses, such a custom
simply did not exist;2 and, second, this is not a case of
mere hterary convention, but one of serious intention, with
a view to gaining a real advantage by the use of the law
giver's authority. The nearest parallel, perhaps, that
suggests itself is the promulgation in Europe in the ninth
century of our era of the great collection of spurious
documents known as the Isidorian Decretals, carrying back
the loftiest claims of the mediaeval Papacy to apostolic men
of the first century. No one hesitates to speak of these
spurious decretals, which gained acceptance, and were for
long incorporated in the Canon law, by their rightful name
of " forgeries." 8 Can we help giving the same designation
to the handiwork of these exilian constructors of a pseudo-
Mosaic Code?4 It is futile to speak, in excuse, of the
1 See above, pp. 165 ff.
3 E.g., Ezekiel did not attribute his laws to Moses ; the Chronicler did
not attribute the elaborate ordinances in 1 Chron. xxiii. to Moses but to
David ; Ezra and Nehemiah themselves did not attribute their modified
arrangements to Moses. Circumcision was not attributed to Moses, etc.
We do not know of any laws being attributed to Moses which were not
believed to be Mosaic.
8 Hallam says of these in his Middle Ages : " Upon these spurious
decretals was built the great fabric of papal supremacy over the different
national Churches ; a fabric which has stood after its foundation crumbled
beneath it ; for no one has pretended to deny, for the last two centuries,
that the imposture is too palpable for any but the most ignorant ages to
credit " (Student's Hallam, p. 295).
4 " Such procedure," says Riehm, "would have to be called a fraud." —
Einleit. i. p. 217.

294 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES-
different standards of literary honesty in those days. It
is not overstepping the mark to say, as before, that men
like' Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Ezra* were as capable of dis
tinguishing between truth and falsehood, as conscious of
the sin of deceit, as zealous for the honour of God, as
incapable of employing lying lips, or a lying pen, in the
service of Jehovah, as any of our critics to-day.1 We
simply cannot conceive of these men as entering into such
a conspiracy, or taking part in such a fraud, as the
Wellhausen theory supposes. For it was undeniably as
genuine M°sai° ordinances that it was meant to pass off
these laws upon the people. Let only the effect be imagined
had Ezra interpolated his reading with the occasional ex
planation that this or that principal ordinance, given forth
by him as a law of Moses in the wilderness, was really a
private concoction of some unknown priest in Babylon —
perchance his own !
2. Besides the moral, there confronts us, in the second
place, a historical incredibility. We do not dwell on
the peculiar taste of these exilian scribes, of whose very
existence, it must be remembered, we have not a morsel of
evidence, who, out of their own heads, occupied themselves
with tireless ingenuity in elaborating these details of
tabernacle, encampments, and ceremonial, planning new
laws, festivals, and regulations for imaginary situations —
devising everything with such care, and surrounding it with
so perfect an air of the wilderness, that, as Wellhausen
owns,2 no trace of the real date by any chance shines
through. Neither do we dwell on the singular unity of
mind which must have pervaded their ranks to enable them
to concert so well-compacted and coherent a scheme as, on
any showing, the Levitical law is.8 We shall assume that
some peculiarly constituted minds might delight in evolving
these fanciful things, and might even, at a sufficient distance
of time, get their romance by mistake accepted as history.
1 See above, p. 259. Cf. Jer. viii. 8 ; xiv. 14 ; xxiii. 32 ; Ezek. xiii. 6,
7, 19, etc.
3 "It tries hard to imitate the costume of the Mosaic period and, with
whatever success, to disguise its own. ... It guards itself against all
reference to later times and a settled life in Canaan. ... It keeps itself
carefully and strictly within the limits of the situation in the wilderness." —
Hist, of Israel, p. 9. Riehm says: "Nowhere are any anachronisms found
in the Levitical legislation." — Einl. i. p. 217.
' Cf. Note B on Unity of the Law.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 295
The thing which needs explanation is, how the scheme, once
conceived, should be able to get under weigh as it did, in
the actual circumstances of the return from the exile. That
problem has only to be faced to show how incredible is the
critical solution.
We turn to the account of the production and reading of
the law by Ezra in Neh. viii., as before we did to the narrative
of the finding of " the book of the law " in 2 Kings, and are
there presented with a plain, unvarnished tale, which bears
upon its face every mark of truth. We read how the people
of Jerusalem, gathered "as one man into the broad place
that was before the water-gate," asked Ezra the scribe " to
bring the book of the law of Moses, which Jehovah had
commanded to Israel."1 Ezra, who before has been
described as "a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which
Jehovah, the God of Israel, had given,"2 and as coming
from Babylon with the law of God in his hand,8 now, at the
people's request, produced the book, and from an improvised
"pulpit of wood" read its contents to the congregation
"from morning till midday," while others who stood by
" gave the sense." 4 This was repeated from the first to the
last day of the feast of Tabernacles in the seventh month.6
Everything in the narrative is plain and above board. There
is not a hint that anything contained in this " book of the
- law " was new,6 though the knowledge of much that it con
tained had evidently been lost. The entire congregation
listen to it with unquestioning faith as " the law of Moses."
They hear all its enactments about priests and Levites, its
complicated regulations about sacrifices, about sin-offerings,
1 Neh. viii. 1. 2 Ezra vii. 6.
8 Ezra vii. 14. 4 Neh. viii. 2-8.
5 Vers. 8, 18. Professor H. P. Smith, unlike Wellhausen and Kuenen, who
found upon it, discredits, as before intimated, the whole story, and doubts
the very existence of Ezra. His account is worth quoting, as a specimen of
a phase of criticism : "During the century after Nehemiah the community
in Judah was becoming more rigid in its exclusiveness and in its devotion to
the ritual. Ezra is the impersonation of both tendencies. Whether there
was a scribe named Ezra is not a matter of great importance. Very likely
there was such a scribe to whose name tradition attached itself. First, it
transferred the favour of Artaxerxes to him from Nehemiah. Then it made
him the hero of the introduction of the law, and finally it attributed to him
the abrogation of the mixed marriages. . . . The wish was father to the
thought, and the thought gave rise to the story of Ezra. Ezra was the ideal
scribe, as Solomon was the ideal king, projected upon the background of an
earlier age. "—O.T. Hist. pp. 396-97.
« Cf. Kittel, Hist. ofHebs. i. p. 104.

296 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
about tithes, but do not raise a question. Nothing, on the
premises of the theory, could be more surprising. Tithes
of corn and oil, not to say of cattle, for the support of the
Levitical order, had never before been heard of,1 but the
people submit to the burden without dissent. They hear
of a day of atonement, and of the solemn and elaborate
ritual by which it is to be annually observed, but it does
not occur to them that this institution has been unknown
in all the past of their history. The Levites, descendants,
on the theory, of Ezekiel's degraded idolatrous priests — of
whose degradation, however, to this lower rank, history
contains no mention — show no amazement when they
learn for the first time that their tribe was specially set
apart by Jehovah for His service in the wilderness, and had
then a hberal provision made for their wants; that cities
even had been appointed for them to dwell in. Many
of the more learned in the gathering — men versed in
genealogies and priestly traditions — must have been well
aware that the most striking of the ordinances which Ezra was
reading from his roll, were unhistorical inventions, yet they
take it all in. There was, as the Book of Nehemiah itself
clearly shows, a strongly disaffected party, and a rehgiously
faithless party, in the city, — a faction keenly opposed to
Ezra and Nehemiah,2 — but no one raises a doubt. Priests
and people, we learn from Malachi, were alike shamef ully
remiss in the discharge of their obligations,8 yet they never
question the genuineness of any article in the Code. The
very Samaritans — the bitterest of the Jews' enemies in this
period — receive not long after the whole law at the hands
of the Jews as the undoubted law of Moses.4 Is anything
in the " traditional " theory more astounding, or harder to
believe, than all this is?6 There is another fact. Ezra's
1 Wellhausen says the tithe was introduced by Ezra, Hist, of Israel, p. 166.
aCf. Neh. vi. 10-19; viii. etc. W. R. Smith even says: "All the
historical indications point to the priestly aristocracy being the chief
opponents of Ezra." — O.T. in J. C, p. 448. This makes matters still more
inexplicable. 8 Mai. i. 6-14 ; iii. 7-15 ; Neh. xiii. 10 ff. Cf. W. R. Smith, as above,
p. 445. 4 See below, Chap. X. p. 870, and Note there.
6 Wellhausen says : " As we are accustomed to infer the date of the com
position of Deuteronomy from its publication and introduction by Josiah, so
we must infer the date of the composition of the Priestly Code from its
publication and introduction by Ezra and Nehemiah." — Hist, of Israel,

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 297
reading of the law was in 444 B.c. But nearly a century
earher, in 536 B.c, at the time of the first return under
Zerubbabel, we find no inconsiderable part of the law already
in operation. Priests and Levites are there ; the high priest
is there;1 a complete organisation of worship is there,
morning and evening sacrifices are there, set feasts are
there, etc.2 Even if details are challenged, the central facts
in this narrative, e.g., the presence of priests and Levites,
and of an organisation of worship, cannot be overthrown.8
3. There is yet, however, a third incredibility arising
from the unsuitability of the Code itself. We found the
Code of Deuteronomy to be in many respects unsuitable to
the age of Josiah. But the unsuitability of Deuteronomy
is slight compared with the lack of agreement in the
Levitical Code with the state of things in the days of Ezra
and Nehemiah. From the point of view of the theory, the
Code was designed to be put in force after the return from
the exile. The return, therefore, even in the exile, must
have been confidently expected. Yet, when the Code is
examined, nothing could seem less suitable for its purpose.
The whole wilderness framework of the legislation was out
of date and place in that late age. The sanctuary is a
portable tabernacle, whereas the circumstances of the time
demanded a temple. Many of the laws, like that requiring
that all sacrifices should be offered at the door of the
tabernacle, with the reason for this regulation,4 were quite
out of keeping with the new conditions, had, indeed, no
relevancy from the time when the people entered on a
settled life in Canaan. Suitable in its place, if it precedes
the relaxing rule of Deut. xii. 15, it is unintelligible after.
Other parts of the Code had to be dropped or changed, as
inapplicable to the post-exilian order of things. There was,
e.g., no ark, or priestly Urim or Thummim, in the second
p. 408. We contend, on the contrary, that the narrative of this introduction
is a conclusive disproof of Wellhausen's view of its date.
1 Cf. Zech. iii. 1.
3 Ezra iii. 2 ff.
'Delitzsch says: "It is a fact as credibly attested as possible that the
distinction of ranks of priests and Levites existed already in B.C. 536, and
long before B.C. 444 ; and indeed so uncontested, so thoroughly established,
so strictly maintained, that it must be dated back beyond the exile, in which
it cannot have originated, as one regulated by law and custom in the pre-
exilian time." — Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 268.
4 Lev. xvii. 1-4. See below, p. 314.

298 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
temple. The tax imposed by Nehemiah was a third part of a
shekel, instead of the half '-shekel of the law.1 The law, in one
place, prescribes twenty-five years as the age for the Levites
entering on service, and in another place thirty years.2 We
find, however, that, after the return, neither of these laws
was adopted, but, in accordance with a rule ascribed in
Chronicles to David, the Levites commenced their duties at .
the age of twenty.8 A more striking example of unsuitability
to contemporary conditions is found in the tithe-laws, declared
to be a direct creation of the exile. The Levitical law in
Numbers is based on the assumption of a large body of
Levites, and a relatively small body of priests. The tithes
are to be paid directly to the Levites, who are then required
to give a tenth of what they receive to the priests.4 But
these provisions were absolutely unsuitable to the times
succeeding the exile, when, as we see from the Book of
Ezra, the number of Levites who returned was very small,
while the number of priests was large.6 Instead of ten
Levites for every priest, the proportion may have been about
twelve or thirteen priests for every Levite. This rendered
completely nugatory the arrangements of the Code, and
made readjustment inevitable. Wellhausen calls this
discrepancy " a trifling circumstance," 6 but fails to explain
why a law should have been promulgated so entirely un-
suited to the actual situation. The history, besides, has no
mention of the tithing of cattle under Nehemiah as pre
scribed by the law — only of tithes of field produce.7 As if
to render the contrast more striking, while we have in the
Code these rules about tithes, so absolutely unsuitable to
the circumstances of the exile, with its numerous priests
and handful of Levites, we have, on the other hand, mention
in the history of an extensive personnel connected with the
service of the temple — porters, Nethinim, children of
1 Ex. xxx. 11-16 ; cf. Neh. x. 32.
3 Num. iv. 23, 30, etc. ; cf. viii. 24. The LXX makes both passages
thirty years. This is one of those unessential variations in laws, which, if
the ordinary harmonistic explanation is not accepted, viz., that the one law
(Num. viii.) refers to the lighter service of the tabernacle itself, the other
(Num. iv.) to the harder work of transportation, points to a liberty of
varying the strict letter of the law, provided its spirit or principle was
adhered to. See above, p. 179.
3 Ezra iii. 8 ; cf. 1 Chron. xxiii. 24, 27.
4 Num. xviii. 24-26. 6 Ezra ii. ; viii. 15 ff.
• Hist, of Israel, p. 167. ' Neh. x. 39 ; xiii. 6.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 299
Solomon's servants, singing-men, and singing-women1 — of
which, curiously enough, the law, supposed to be drawn up
specially for this community, knows nothing.2 How is this
to be rendered natural or conceivable on the critical
assumption of the date of the Code 1 s
III. The Argument feom Silence m its Beabings
on the Code
We pass now from these initial incredibilities to the
examination of the positive foundations of the critical
theory; and here, if we mistake not, the impression pro
duced by the above considerations will be more than con
firmed. The argument for the exilian or post-exilian dating
of the Priestly Code may be said to have two main branches :
(1) the alleged silence of pre-exilian history and literature
as to the pecuhar institutions of the Code; and (2) the
alleged incompatibility of the sanctuary and ritual arrange
ments of the pre-exilic time — mirrored to us in the history,
the prophets, and the Book of Deuteronomy — with the
Levitical regulations. We shall under the present head
consider the general value of this argument from silence;
we shall then inquire whether the silence regarding the
laws and institutions of the Priests' Code is as unbroken as
is alleged; finally, we shall endeavour to show that the
critical theory itself breaks down in its attempt to explain
these institutions — this with special reference to the
Ezekiel theory of the origin of the distinction of priests and
Levites. The " incompatibility " argument has already
been in considerable part anticipated, but will be touched
upon as far as necessary.
The argument from mere silence then, to begin with
that, is proverbially precarious ; in a case hke the present
it is pecuharly so. It is easy to understand why a ritual
law, which, all down, must have been largely an affair of the
1 Ezra ii. 41, 55, 58, 65, 70. The members of some of these guilds were
probably Levitical (1 Chron. xxiii. ; cf. Delitzsch, Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 287),
though the name "Levite" was specially appropriated to those directly
ministering to the priests. This would increase somewhat the proportion
of returning Levites.
3 Delitzsch, Dillmann (Num.-Jos. p. 671), Baudissin (" Priests and
Levites" in Diet, of Bible, iv. p. 88), etc., urge this point.
8 For additional instances of unsuitability, cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i.
p. 106.

300 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
priests, should not frequently obtrude itself upon the view :
when it does, as in the Books of Chronicles, it is set down as
a mark of untrustworthiness. Particularly, the fact that
the Levitical laws are', in their original form, adapted to a
tabernacle, and to wilderness conditions, precludes the
possibility of much reference to them in that form, after the
people were settled in Canaan, and after a temple had been
built. Assuming the sanctuary and sacrificial ordinances of
the Code to have always been in the most perfect opera
tion, — and it is certain that in many periods they were
not, — it would still be unreasonable to expect that they
should be constantly thrusting their heads into the story,
and foolish to argue that, because they did not, therefore
they had no existence. We take, however, broader ground,
and propose to show, with the help of the critics them
selves, that, notwithstanding the silence, a large part of
the Code may have been, and indeed actually was, in
operation. 1. On the showing of the Wellhausen theory itself, it is
not difficult to establish that the argument from mere
silence is far from conclusive. We fall back here on the
admission freely made that everything in the Priestly Code
is not new. It is allowed, on the contrary, that materially
a great part of the Levitical legislation must have been in
existence before the exile. Especially, as before in the case
of Deuteronomy, when the object is to free the hypothesis
from the aspect of fraud, remarkable concessions on this
point are frequently made. If, at one time, we are told by
Dr. Driver that " the pre-exilic period shows no indications
of the legislation of P as being in operation," 1 at another
time we are assured that " in its main stock, the legislation
of P was not (as the critical view of it is sometimes
represented by its opponents as teaching) 'manufactured'
by the priests during the exile ; it is based upon pre
existing temple usage." 2 We do not defend the consistency of
1 Introd. p. 136.
' Ibid. p. 143. See below, p. 312. Similarly the quotations from Kuenen
and Wellhausen on pp. 291-92 above, may be compared with the following
from Kuenen: "The decrees of the priestly law were not made and
invented during or after the exile, but drawn up. Prior to the exile, the
priests had already delivered verbally what — with the modifications that
had become necessary in the meantime — they afterwards committed to
writing." — Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 96. " I have already drawn attention to the
probability that disconnected priestly ordinances or torahs were in circula-

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 301
these statements ; the one is, in fact, as we shall immediately
see, destructive of the other. The tendency in writers of
this school is, in reality, to a kind of see-saw between these
two positions; the one that the Priestly Code was in the
main a simple "codification" of pre-exilic usage — a com
paratively innocent hypothesis; and the other that the
characteristic institutions of the Priestly Code — ark,
tabernacle, Aaronic priests, Levites, tithes, Levitical cities,
sin-offerings, day of atonement," etc., were, one and all, the
free creation of the exilic period — were then, despite Dr.
Driver's disclaimer, " manufactured " x — and were absolutely
unknown earher. If the latter proposition cannot be
maintained, the whole hypothesis goes to earth. Here
again we are entitled to say that the critics must really
make their choice. They cannot well be allowed at one
time to employ arguments which are of no force unless on
the assumption that the Levitical law is, as a whole, in
matter as well as in form, new; and at another, to use
arguments based on the contention that the bulk of the
legislation is, in practice, old.2
Let us, however, accept, as we are glad to do, the state
ment that " the main stock " of the legislation of P is " based
upon pre-existing temple usage," and see what follows. The
observance of this "main stock" before the exile either
appears in the history, or it does not. If it does not, what
becomes of the argument from silence against the other
institutions ? If it does, what becomes of Wellhausen's
statement that "no trace can be found of acquaintance
with the Priestly Code, but, on the other hand, very clear
indications of ignorance of its contents ? " 8 It is nothing to
the purpose to reply, as is commonly done, that before the
exile there was indeed praxis — usage — but no written
tion before the exile, even though a system of priestly legislation was
wanting at that time " (p. 192).
1 We may take in illustration the law of the passover in Exodus,
referred to further below, pp. 320-21. Graf treats Ex. xii. 1-28 as a pure
creation of the time of the exile, and deduces from the fact of its agreement
with the priestly and sacrificial laws of Leviticus, that these must be
exilian or post-exilian also (Geschicht. Biicher, pp. 34-36). Wellhausen's
view is that the law has undergone a transformation which inverts the
relation of cause and effect. It was the Israelitish custom of offering the
firstlings which gave rise to the story of the slaying of the firstborn in
Egypt, not vice versa. — Hist, of Israel, pp. 88, 100, 102, 352.
2 Cf. Robertson on Wellhausen, Early Religion, etc., pp. 393-94.
• Hist, of Israel, p. 59.

302 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Priestly Code, or Code of ritual law attributed to Moses.1
For (1) the very ground on which the existence of a written
Code is denied is that there is no proof of the practice ; and (2)
if the practice is allowed, who is to certify that a written
law, regulating the practice, was not there ? Against the
existence of a written law, we have only Wellhausen's
dogmatic dictum, repeated by other critics, that, so . long
as the cultus lasted, people would not concern themselves
with reducing it to the form of a Code.2 It was only when
it had passed away that men thought of reducing it to
writing. That, however, Wellhausen certainly cannot prove,
and his view is not that of older and of a good many
recent scholars.8 Nor has it probability in itself. Are
written Codes — especially in the light of modern knowledge
— so entirely unknown to antiquity as to warrant anyone in
saying a priori that, even where an elaborate ritual is
acknowledged to be in operation, a Code regulating it
cannot have existed ? 4
2. There is an admitted "pre-existing temple usage,"
constituting " the main stock " of the priestly law ; reflection
may next convince us that this "pre-existing usage must
have covered a much larger part of the Levitical Code than
is commonly realised. There existed at least a splendid
temple, with outer and inner divisions; a sacred ark;
temple furniture and utensils; a hereditary priesthood.
The priests would have their sacred vestments, prescribed
duties, ritual lore, their technique in the manipulation of
the different kinds of sacrifices, their recognised rules for
the discernment and treatment of leprosy, their rules for
ceremonial purification, their calendar of sacred festivals,
etc. These things existed ; assume the laws relating to them
1 Ibid. ; cf. Kuenen, as above, p. 96. 3 Ibid.
8 Cf. Bleek, Introd. i. pp. 221 ff. ; Dillmann, Exod.-Lev. Pref. p. viii
(see above, p. 160) ; p. 386.
4 Analogy and discovery furnish strong grounds for believing that Israel
would have a written law. Kittel says on this point : " Israel came out of,
and always continued to be connected with, a country where external
prescriptions and rules played their part in all ages. As in Egypt, so in
Babylonia and Assyria, rules were laid down for sacrificial worship at an
early period. The Marseilles Table of Offerings has brought the same fact to
light as regards the Phoenicians. Is it to be believed that with all this
scrupulosity on the part of the surrounding priesthoods, a primitive
informalism, of which there is no other example, prevailed in Israel alone
until the days of the restoration ? " — Hist. ofHebs.i. p. 113. Cf. Dillmann,
Num.-Jos. p. 647,

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 303
to be written down, what ground have we for supposing that
they would have differed greatly from the laws preserved to
us in Leviticus and Numbers ? Yet how httle of all this
obtrudes itself in the history ? Nothing, we have again to
point out, is gained by the substitution of praxis for written
law ; for it is not the written law, usually, but the practice,
that history takes cognisance of, and, if silence in the history
is compatible with the practice, it must also be compatible
with the existence of any Code that regulates it. How far
this reaches will appear more clearly if we look at specific
instances. Wellhausen speaks repeatedly of the splendour and
elaboration of the pre-exilic cultus. There was a cultus
"carried on," he tells us, "with the utmost zeal and
splendour " 1 — " splendid sacrifices, presumably offered with
all the rules of priestly skill." 2 " Elaborate ritual may have
existed in the great sanctuaries at a very early period."8
He correctly infers " that Amos and Hosea, presupposing as
they do a splendid cultus and great sanctuaries, doubtless
also knew of a variety of festivals." 4 But he has to add,
" they have no occasion to mention any one by name." To
the same effect Isaiah is quoted : " Add ye year to year, let
the feasts go round." 6 But where shall we look in history
for any notice of these feasts ? It is allowed that the three
feasts of the Book of the Covenant were observed from early
times; yet, says Wellhausen, "names are nowhere to be
found, and in point of fact it is only the autumn festival
that is well attested, and this, it would appear, as the only
festival, as the feast." 6 Still the critic has no doubt that
" even under the older monarchy the previous festivals must
also have already existed as well." 7 As particular examples,
let the reader take his concordance, and note the exceeding
paucity of the allusions in the historical books to such
institutions as the sabbath, the new moon, or even the rite
of circumcision. How easy, on the strength of this silence,
would it be to say in the famihar way : " Joshua, Judges,
the Books of Samuel, know nothing of the sabbath!"
Drop one or two incidental references, which might easily
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 56. 3 Ibid. p. 55.
8 Ibid. p. 54. 4 Ibid. p. 94. B Ibid.
* Ibid. It is not the case, however, that no other feasts are named. See
below, pp. 321-22.
7 Ibid. p. 96.

304 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
not have been there, and the evidence in the history for the
above, as for many other institutions, disappears altogether.
Does it follow that the sabbath, or a law of the sabbath,
had no existence ?
3. The test may be applied in another way. It is urged,
e.g., that there is no clear reference in pre-exilian literature
to the existence of a class of Levites as distinct from the
priests. It has already been seen that this is not altogether
the case,1 and, at least, as pointed out, the Levites appear
quite distinctly at the return, nearly a century before the
Priestly Code was promulgated by Ezra. But what of post-
exilian literature? Apart from Ezra and Nehemiah, and
the Books of Chronicles, how many references to the Levites
could be gleaned from exihan and post-exilian writings?
The second Isaiah (assuming the critical date), the prophets
Haggai, Zechariah, Joel (if he be post-exilian), Malachi,2 the
Psalter — declared to be the song-book of the second temple
— all are silent, with the possible exception of Ps. cxxxv. 20.
The Priests' Code generally finds little reflection in the
Psalter. Even in the Priestly Code itself, it is surprising to
discover how large a part contains no allusions to the
Levites. In Leviticus — the priestly book par excellence —
with the solitary exception of chap. xxv. 32, 33, they are not
so much as named.8 Equally remarkable is the silence of
the New Testament on the Levites. One stray allusion in
the parable of the Good Samaritan;4 one in the Fourth
Gospel;6 one in Acts, where Barnabas is described as a
Levite6 — that is all. The Epistle to the Hebrews, even,
has nothing to say of them. Priests everywhere, but
Levites nowhere. This, surely, is a sufficiently striking
object-lesson in silence. Yet it is on the ground of a
similar silence to this that we are asked to beheve that
there was no pre-exilian observance of the day of atone
ment.7 Doubtless there is no mention in the history of this
yearly day of expiation — any more than there is of the /
1 See above, pp. 163, 189.
' The Levites in Malachi are the priests.
• Of. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i. pp. 120-21. Kittel shows that Sn large parts
of the Priestly Code "there is no contrast between priests and Levites."
4 Luke x. 32. » John i. 19. " Acts iv. 36.
7 We are aware that it is argued that its observance is on certain occasions
precluded by the narrative. But see Delitzsch's article, Luthardt's Zeitschrift,
1880, pp. 173 ff.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 305
sabbatical year,1 the year of jubilee,2 and many other
institutions which we have good reason to believe were
known, even if they were not always faithfully observed.8
But the argument from silence in the case of the day of
atonement proves too much ; for, as it happens, ^os£-exihan
literature is as silent about it as pre-exilian. Important
solemnity as it was, it is not mentioned by Ezra, Nehemiah,
Chronicles, or any of the post-exilian prophets. The first
notice of its observance is in Josephus, who tells us that, in
27 B.C., Herod took Jerusalem on that day, as Pompey had
done twenty-seven years before.4 The Gospels and Acts
contain no reference to the day of atonement; yet we
know from the Epistle to the Hebrews that it was observed,
and that its rites were familiar.6
IV. Pkoof of Eaelieb Existence of Peiestly
Legislation
Thus far we have proceeded on the critics' own
assumption of the silence in pre-exilian times regarding
the laws and institutions of the Priestly Code. But was
the silence really as unbroken as is alleged ? We shall now
endeavour to show that it was not. The opposite can only
be maintained by the process of circular reasoning which
explains away every testimony to the contrary by the
assumption of late date or interpolation of the notice, or by
the convenient distinction between Code and usage. We
go on the contrary principle that praxis, as a rule, is a
testimony in favour of Code ; but we hope to do something
to prove the presence of Code also.
In an earlier chapter we sought to estabhsh the existence
in pre-exilic times of many of the characteristic institutions
1 Ex. xxiii. 10 ; Lev. xxv. 2 ff. ; xxvi. 34, 35. The first mention of the
sabbatical year is in the time of the Maccabees (1 Mace. vi. 53).
2 Lev. xxv. Cf. Isa. lxi. 1, 2. Kuenen admits that Ezekiel knew the
jubilee year (Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 191).
8 The Wellhausen school deny the observance, but without good reason
(cf. Dillmann on Lev. xxv. 7,. p. 608).
4 Anliq. xiv. 16. 4.
0 Heb. ix. 7 ff. The list of silences might easily be extended. The
feast of weeks, e.g., is not mentioned by Ezekiel, who speaks of the
passover and the feast of tabernacles. It is alluded to only once in the
whole history before the exile (1 Kings ix. 25 ; 2 Chron. viii. 13). Neither
does Ezekiel allude to the evening sacrifice.

306 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
of the Levitical Code, e.g., the ark, the tabernacle, the
Aaronic priesthood, the high priest, etc.1 It adds to the
weight of the argument that in many instances we are
indebted to quite incidental allusions for a knowledge of
facts and observances whose existence might not otherwise
have been suspected. It is, e.g., only by accident that we
came on the notice of "the shewbread" in the sanctuary
at Nob in the reign of Saul.2 Again, from 1 Sam. i., ii, we
might hastily conclude that there were at Shiloh no priests
but Eli and his two sons; as from chap. xxi. we might infer
that there was at Nob only the single priest Ahimelech. Yet
Saul's massacre after David's flight discovers to us the pres
ence at Nob of eighty-five priests that wore a linen ephod.8
If it be replied that the references to ark, tabernacle, priest
hood, shewbread, and the like, do not prove the existence
of the detailed representations of the Priestly Code 4 this
may be granted, and is only to be expected. But they
show at least that these things were there to be legislated
for, and annul the presumption against laws which have
this for their object. It is a curious state of mind that can
see a propriety in the codification of laws, e.g., about
parapets and fringes,6 but supposes that everything about
sanctuary and sacrifice was left to drift on without
authoritative regulation. It is now necessary, however, to
come to closer quarters, and to ask whether there is any
direct evidence of the existence of priestly laws in written
form in pre-exilian times.
1. We turn first to the Book of Ezekiel, and specially
to chaps. xL-xlviii., which Wellhausen says have been not
incorrectly called "the key of the Old Testament,"8 and
between which and the Priestly Code, at any rate, it is
1 Cf. above, Chap. VI. a 1 Sam. xxi.
8 1 Sam. xxii. 18. Wellhausen allows that there must have been a
considerable establishment at Shiloh. "The temple of Shiloh," he says,
"the priesthood of which we find officiating at Nob a little later." "The
Iffice is hereditary, and the priesthood already very numerous." — Hist, of
Israel, pp. 19, 128.
4 Thus Dr. Driver, Introd. p. 142. See above, p. 171. The regulations
for such an establishment must have been pretty detailed, if they existed
at all. » Deut. xxii. 8, 12.
6 Hist, of Israel, p. 421. (Cf. p. 25 above.) Smend also says : " The
decisive importance of this section for the criticism of the Pentateuch was
first recognised by George and Vatke. It has been rightly called the key
of the Old Testament. In fact it is only intelligible as an intermediate

THE PRLESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 307
allowed on all sides that there exists a close relation.1
What is the nature of that relation ? Is it, as the world
has till recently beheved, the Levitical Code, with which
as a priest he was necessarily famihar, which furnished
Ezekiel with suggestion and guidance in the framing of his
sketch of a new theocracy, in which older institutions are
freely remodelled and changed?2 Or is it, as the newer
critics allege, that no written priestly laws as yet existed,
and that Ezekiel's sketch was the first rough draft —
" programme " — on the basis of which exilian scribes
afterwards worked to produce their so-called Mosaic Code.3
The latter view is necessary to the Wellhausen hypothesis,4
yet it is one against which a powerful note of dissent is
raised by an influential company of scholars, many of them
well-nigh as " advanced " as Wellhausen himself.6 It is
pointed out, surely with justice, that the vision of Ezekiel
is only conceivable as the product of a mind saturated with
the knowledge of temple law and ritual ; that the parallels
with the Priestly Code are not confined to chaps. xl.-xlviii.,
but go through the whole book;6 that much is simply
alluded to, or left to be understood, which only the Priestly
Code can explain;7 above all, that the scheme of the
Levitical Code deviates so widely in conception and detail
from that of Ezekiel as to render it unthinkable that its
link between Deuteronomy and the Priestly Code, and it thence follows
that the latter is exilian or post-exilian." — Ezechiel, p. 312.
1 " On one point," says Baudissin, " there can be no doubt, namely this,
that the affinity between the law of Ezekiel and the Priests' Code is so
great that it can be explained only by the dependence of one of these upon
the other."— Diet, of Bible, iv. p. 86.
2 It seems obvious that the vision is a work of prophetic imagination,
and is not intended to be taken as a literal programme for future realisation.
One has only to read the vision of the waters, and the direction for the
division of the land in chap, xlvii. to see that they belong to the region of
the ideal — not of fact.
8 Cf. Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 116.
4 One of the theses on which, from 1833, Reuss based his lectures was this :
" Ezekiel is earlier than the redaction of the ritual code, and of the laws,
which definitely organised the hierarchy." (Cf. Wellhausen, Hist. p. 4.)
See above, p. 200. Since the time of Graf, Delitzsch says, "the Book of
Ezekiel has become the Archimedean point of the Pentateuchal oriticism."
—Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 279.
8 Among critics of the theory may be mentioned Delitzsch, Riehm,
Dillmann, Schrader, Noldeke, Baudissin, Kittel, Oettli, etc.
8 See below, pp. 308-9.
7 E.g., the sin- and trespass-offerings, chaps, xl. 39 ; xliv. 29. See
Note C on Ezekiel and Earlier Law and Observance.

308 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
authors took the temple-vision of Ezekiel as a pattern.
How, indeed, if they viewed the vision of Ezekiel as a
prophetic revelation, should they presume to ignore or
contradict it so directly as they do ? x We are aware that
the objection is retorted: how should Ezekiel presume to
alter a divinely-given earlier Code?2 But the cases are
quite different. Ezekiel is not putting forward a code in
the name of Moses. He is a prophetic man, avowedly
legislating in the Spirit for a transformed land and a
transformed people in the future. Not only, however, does
the prophesying of Ezekiel presuppose an older law, but the
references with which his pages are filled to " statutes and
judgments," or " ordinances " of God,8 which the people had
transgressed (in their "abominations" at the sanctuary
among other things), show explicitly that he had such laws
habitually before him.
2. But the subject admits of being brought to a nearer
determination. There is at least one important section of
the Priestly Code which, it is allowed, stands in the closest
possible connection with Ezekiel. We refer to "that
peculiar little collection of laws," as Wellhausen calls it,*
embraced in Lev. xvii. -xxvi. (with, according to most,
extensive fragments elsewhere), which modern writers,
following Klostermann, usually name "The Law of
Holiness." 5 The resemblances with Ezekiel here, particu-
1 "It is," says Delitzsch, "incomprehensible how Ezra and Nehemiah
could dare to publish a law-book whose ordinances contradict those of
Ezekiel on all sides, and which still, in matter and form, shows itself well
acquainted with the latter." — Zeitschrift, p. 281. The systematic character
of Ezekiel's law, as compared with the iwisystematio character of the
Levitical Code, shows that it is not the latter which is dependent on the
former, but vice versa.
2 Thus Graf, Kautzsch, etc. Professor Robertson remarks : " Well, on the
critical hypothesis, the Deuteronomic law at least existed as authoritative,
and yet Ezekiel deviates from it." — Early Religion, pp.. 432-33. Dr. A. B.
Davidson points out : " Inferences from comparison of Ezekiel with the
Law have to be drawn with caution, for it is evident that the prophet
handles with freedom institutions certainly older than his own time." —
Ezekiel, Introd. p. liii.
8 Ezek. v. 6 ; xi. 12, and passim.
4 Hist, of Israel, p. 51 (cf. pp. 75, 86, 376, 384).
0 Klostermann gave it this name in 1877 in a searching article since
reprinted in his Der Pentateuch, pp. 368 ff. "The principle," says Dr.
Driver, "which determines most conspicuously the character of the entire
section is that of holiness — partly ceremonial, partly moral — as a quality
distinguishing Israel, demanded of Israel by Jehovah." — Introd. p. 48.
Characteristic of it is the phrase " I am Jehovah."

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 309
larly in Lev. xxvi.,1 are so numerous and striking that no
one doubts the reality of some kind of dependence, but
opinions have widely differed in critical quarters as to the
nature of that dependence. At first it was confidently
maintained, as by Graf, Kayser, Colenso (in part), etc., that
Ezekiel himself must be the author of these sections.
" Amidst all the peculiarities," wrote Graf, " by which these
passages, and especially chap, xxvi., are distinguished from
the other portions of the Pentateuch, there is exhibited so
strange an agreement in thought and expression with
Ezekiel, that this cannot be accidental, nor can be explained
by reference to the sameness of the circle within which
Ezekiel and the writer worked, but leads necessarily to the
assumption that Ezekiel himself was the writer." z Subse
quently,- when this theory was effectually disproved, on the
basis of a wider induction, by Klostermann, Noldeke, and
Kuenen, the view was adopted that the writer was some
one acquainted with Ezekiel, who, in Kuenen's words,
"imitated him, and worked on in his spirit."8 This,
however, is too evidently a makeshift, and does violence
also to all probability ; for how should an " imitator " be
supposed to have picked out just these isolated expressions
of Ezekiel, and inserted them into a Code presenting
throughout such marked peculiarities ? " That the Law of
Holiness is formed after the model of Ezekiel's speech," says
Delitzsch, "is, to unprejudiced literary criticism, a sheer
impossibility." 4 The only view which simply and naturally
meets the case is that favoured also by Dr. Driver6 — viz.,
that the prophet was acquainted with and used the law in
question, which, therefore, is older than himself.
1 For lists of parallels cf. Colenso, Pent. Pt. vi. pp. 5-10 ; Driver,
Introd. p. 147 ; Carpenter, Hex. i. pp. 147-48, etc.
3 Geschicht. Bilcher, p. 81 ; cf. Colenso, as above, chaps, i., ii.
8 Hex. p. 276. See below, p. 339.
4 Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 619.
8 Dr. Driver says : " His [Ezekiel's] book appears to contain clear
svidence that he was acquainted with the Law of Holiness. ... In
each instance he expresses himself in terms agreeing with the Law of
Holiness in such a manner as only to be reasonably explained by the
supposition that it formed a body of precepts with which he was familiar,
and which he regarded as an authoritative basis of moral and religious life."
— Introd. pp. 145-46 ; cf. p. 149 : " It may further be taken for granted that
the laws of H — at least the principal and most characteristic laws — are prior
to Ezekiel." So Ryle, Canon, pp. 72 ff. Dillmann says :" Ezekiel lives and
moves in the precepts of the Law of Holiness." — Num.-Jos. p. 646.

310 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES :
This yields at once certain important conclusions. It
demonstrates, in theirs* place, the fallacy of the statement
that no priestly written law existed before the exile — for
here is at least one important Code of priestly law; and,
second, it opens up large vistas of possibiUty as to the
extent of this written law, and casts valuable hght on
the pre-exihan existence of many disputed institutions.
Critical ingenuity, indeed, is amply equal to the fresh
task of dissecting the Code it has discovered — of dis
tinguishing in it a P1 and P2, even an H1, H2, H8, and of
relegating to later hands everything which it thinks un
suitable.1 Thus Baentsch, a recent writer, distinguishes
between chaps. xviii.-xx. (H1) as post-Deuteronomic, but
prior to Ezekiel, and the group later than Ezekiel, chaps.
xxi.-xxii. (H2), and finally chaps, xvii. and xxvi. (H8).2
On the whole, however, the tendency of critical opinion
has been to enlarge the scope of this "Law of Holiness"
rather than to contract it 8 — the expansion, when the assump
tion of late date gives the critic a free hand, assuming
sometimes quite remarkable proportions.4 Even if some
degree of redaction is admitted, it remains certain that
in these chapters of Leviticus with which Ezekiel shows
himself so closely in rapport, laws are embedded relating
to the most contested points in Israel's rehgion. This
Code is, in fact, in a very real sense, the quintessence of
Levitical law. We find in it, to adduce only main instances,
1 Kuenen lays down somewhat naively the following canon for identifying
the fragments of P1 : "We may assign to P1 with high probability (a) the
sections which obviously are not a part of P2, with its later amplifications,"
etc.— Hex. p. 277.
2 Das Heiligkeitsgesetz, 1893.
'With, again, tiie usual wide divergence. "Thus," says Carpenter,
" Driver ascribes to this document Ex. vi. 6-8 ; xii. 12 ; xxxi. 18-14 j
Lev. x. 9a, 10 ; xi. 44 ; Num. xv. 87-41, while Addis allows only Lev. xi.
43-45, and Num. xv. 87-41." — Hex. i. p. 145. See next note.
4 The following from Carpenter will illustrate : " Other soholars, again,
like Wurster, Cornill, Wildeboer, further propose to include within it a
considerable group of Levitical laws more or less cognate in subject and
style. . . . Are all these [passages included by Driver] to be regarded as
relics of Ph ? In that case it must have contained historical as well as
legislative matter on an extensive scale. It must have related the commis
sion to Moses, the death of the firstborn, the establishment of the dwelling,
and the dedication of the Levites to Yahweh's service. Even if the latter
passages be denied to Ph, the implications of Ex. vi. 6-8 suggest that the
document to which it belonged comprised an account of the Exodus, the
great religious institutions, and the settlement in the land promised to the
forefathers," etc. — Hex. p. 145. The vista, indeed, is widening I

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 311
the Aaronic priesthood,1 the high priest,2 sin- and trespass-
offerings,8 the day of atonement,4 the three historical
feasts,6 the sabbatic year,6 the year of jubilee,7 the Levitical
cities,8 etc. We shall think twice, and require strong
evidence, before surrendering all this, at the bidding of
critical theory, to post-exilian hands.
3. Accepting it as established that the Law of Holiness,
and other Levitical laws, were known to Ezekiel, we may
now carry the argument a considerable way higher, with
fresh confirmation of the result already reached. It is
essential to the Wellhausen hypothesis to prove that the
Levitical Code is posterior to Ezekiel; it is still more
indispensable for its purpose to show that it is later than
Deuteronomy. But is this really so ? The assertion is, no
doubt, continually made ; but on this point, once more, the
critical camp is keenly divided, and there appears the
clearest evidence that, as the older scholars all but
unanimously maintained, the author of Deuteronomy is
famihar with, and in his legislation actually embodies or
alludes to, many provisions of the Levitical Code. Here
again Dr. Driver will be our witness, though this time,
perhaps, against his own intention. At first sight, indeed,
this careful scholar seems altogether against us. "The
pre-exihc period," he tells us, " shows no indications of the
legislation of P being in operation. . . . Nor is the legis
lation of P presupposed in Deuteronomy."9 Ere long,
however, we discover that here, also, after the critical
fashion, we have to distinguish two Dr. Drivers (Dr.1 and
Dr.2, shall we say?) — a first, who contends unqualifiedly
that the pre-exilic period "shows no indications of the
legislation of P," and a second, who admits that it is
only " the completed Priests' Code " that is unknown before
the exile, and that "the contradiction of the pre-exilic
literature does not extend to the whole of the Priests'
Code indiscriminately."10 Citation is made of Deut. xiv.
1 Lev. xvii. 2 ; xxi. 1, 17, 21, etc * Chap. xxi. 10-15.
• ChapB. xix. 21, 22 ; xxiii. 19. * Chaps, xxiii. 27-32 ; xxv. 9.
5 Chap, xxiii. 6 Chap. xxv. 2-7. 7 Chap. xxv. 8 ff.
8 Chap. xxv. 32, 33. The notice of the cities is the more valuable that
it comes in incidentally in connection with a different subject.
» Introd. pp. 136, 137. Cf. above, p. 300.
10 Ibid. p. 142 (italics are Dr. D.'s). As statements so discrepant within a
short compass can hardly be supposed to come from the same pen, we are

312 DLFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
4-20, but in the remarks that follow there- is a slight varia
tion between the first and the revised editions of the
Introduction which deserves attention. We quote the first
edition, as better representing the facts, and give the revised
form below.1 " Here," it is said, "is a long passage virtually
identical in Deuteronomy and Leviticus ; and that it is
borrowed by D from P — or at least from a priestly collec
tion of toroth — rather than conversely, appears from
certain features of style which connect it with P and not
with Deuteronomy. ... If so, however, one part of P was in
existence when Deuteronomy was written ; and a presump
tion at once arises that other parts were in existence also.
Now the tenor of Deuteronomy as a whole conflicts with
the supposition that all the institutions of the Priests' Code
were in force when D wrote ; but the list of passages just
quoted shows that some were, and that the terminology
used in connection with them was known to D."2 The
" list " referred to gives in parallel columns a long catalogue
of passages of Deuteronomy corresponding " with P (includ
ing H)," with note of some peculiarities in the mode of
quotation.8 On another page it is said : " In Deuteronomy
the following parallels may be noted," with list again given.4
These are significant admissions, and completely dispose of
the unqualified statements first quoted. Reduced to its
real dimensions, Dr. Driver's argument only is that some
of the characteristic institutions of P — e.g., the distinction
of priests and Levites — conflict with the tenor of D ; 6 and
even this contention, resting largely on the argument from
silence, cannot be allowed the weight he attaches to it. As
he himself says : " That many of the distinctive institutions
of P are not alluded to — the day of atonement, the jubilee
year, the Levitical cities, the sin-offering, the system of
driven back, on critical principles, upon the supposition that the work is
really the composition of a Driver " school " whose members vary slightly in
their standpoints — a hypothesis which other indications support.
1 The 7th edition reads : " Here is a long passage in great measure
verbally identical in Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and a critical comparison
of the two texts makes it probable that both are divergent recensions of a
common original, which in each case, but specially in Leviticus, has been
modified in accordance with the spirit of the book in which it was in
corporated. It is thus apparent that at least one collection of priestly
toroth, which now forms port of P, was in existence when Deuteronomy was
written," etc. (p. 145). The rest as above.
2 Ibid. pp. 137-38 (1st edit.). 8 Ibid. pp. 73-75.
4 Ibid. p. 144. ' Ibid. p. 137.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 313
sacrifices prescribed for particular days — is of less import
ance: the writers of these [historical] books may have
found no occasion to mention them." x The argument from
silence applies nearly as much to the parts of the law
which he admits to have existed, as to those which he
thinks did not exist ; and as much to praxis as to Code.2
However the matter may appear to Dr. Driver, it is
certain that to many able critics,3 looking at the facts from
a different point of view, the evidence seems conclusive
that Deuteronomy was acquainted with the laws of P.
" The Deuteronomic legislation," says Riehm positively,
" presupposes acquaintance with the Priestly Code." 4
Dillmann puts the Priests' Code earher than Deuteronomy,
and the Law of Holiness, named by him S [ = Sinai], in the
main earher still.6 He says : " That D not merely knows
priestly laws, but presupposes them as well known, appears
from many passages of his book." 6 " It is just as certain
that D presupposes and has used other laws (S) which now
lie before us in the connection of A[=P]."7 Oettli says :
" Here certainly such laws as now lie before us only in the
codification of P appear as well known and in validity." 8
He agrees with Delitzsch and the others quoted that
Deuteronomy shows itself acquainted with the priestly
laws.9 Baudissin also puts the Law of Hohness before
Deuteronomy.10 These judgments of leading critics, which
might be largely multiplied, are not based on slight grounds.
The proofs they offer are solid and convincing. We can as
before only give examples, but these will sufficiently indicate
the line of argument.
1 Introd. p. 137. The author, accordingly, falls back on "the different
tone of feeling, and the different spirit " of the historical books ; and allows
that "it is not so much the institutions in themselves as the system with
which they are associated, and the principles of which in P they are made
more distinctly the expression, which seem to bear the marks of a more
advanced stage of ceremonial observance " (ibid. p. 152). Thus the matter
tends to get refined away. Cf. Dr. A. B. Davidson on the argument from
silence, quoted in Note 0 above.
2 Dr. Driver makes a point of the difference in the mode of quotation in
Deuteronomy from, or reference to, JE and P respectively (ibid. pp. 76, 137).
But his statements need qualification. See Note D on Quotations from JE
and P.
8 E.g. Dillmann, Delitzsch, Riehm, Kittel, Oettli, etc.
4 Einleit. i. p. 218. B Num.-Jos. pp. 644-47, 660.
6 Ibid. p. 605. 7 Ibid. 8 Deut., Introd. p. 14.
• Ibid. p. 15. 10 Diet, of Bible, iv. p. 82.

31 4 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Deut. xiv. 4-20 (on clean and unclean animals) is, as Dr.
Driver admits, " in great measure verbally identical " with
Lev. xi. 4-20.
The permission to kill and eat flesh at home in Deut.
xii 15, 20 ff., presupposes and modifies (in view of the
entrance into Canaan, ver. 20) the stringent law in Lev. xvii.
1-3, that all slaying was to be at the tabernacle door;1
and the reiterated prohibitions of eating the blood (vers. 16,
23-25) rest on the enactments in P on the same subject
(Lev. xvii. 23-25; cf. Gen. ix. 4; Lev. iii 17; vii 26,
27, etc.).In Lev. xi. there is a law relating to the eating of things
that die of themselves (vers. 39, 40 ; cf. chap. xvii. 15, 16) ;
in Deut. xiv. 21 there stands a law which, with some modi
fication, presupposes the former. This is marked by the
use of the word " carcase " (Heb.). The discrepancy alleged
to exist between the laws probably arises from the prospect
of altered conditions in Canaan.2
" The year of release " in Deut. xv. 1 ff. glances at the
Sabbatic year of Lev. xxv. 2 ff.
The law of the Passover in Deut. xvi. 1 ff. presupposes
throughout the law in Ex. xii. (P), and modifies it in the
important respect that the Passover is to be no longer a
domestic festival, but is to be observed at the central
sanctuary (vers. 5, 6). This implies the earher family
observance, while it is inconceivable that a law ordaining
the home observance should arise after Deuteronomy.
The references to uncleanness in Deut. xxiii. 9, 10, imply
a knowledge of laws of ceremonial impurity, as in Lev. xv.
Deut. xxiv. 8 expressly affirms the existence of a Mosaic
law of leprosy given to the priests (cf. Lev. xiii., xiv.).
Deut. xxii. 30 certainly does not intend to limit the
crime of incest to this one case, but, as Dehtzsch says,8 has
in view the whole series of enactments in Lev. xviii. 7 ff.
It has before been pointed out that in Deut. xviii 2 we
have a verbal reference to the provision for the Levites in
Num. xviii. 20 ff. In the same chapter we have parallels
in vers. 10, 11 to Lev. xviii. 21 ff., xix. 26, 31, etc.
1 Kuenen by a peculiar logic will have it that the command in Deutero
nomy excludes the law in Leviticus; why, Oettli says, is "unerfindlich"
(Deut. p. 14).
2 Cf. p. 276 above and Note there.
8 Genesis, i. p. 42. See Delitzsch's whole list, pp. 41-42.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 315
It will be seen, even from this selection of instances,
that the references more or less explicit to priestly laws in
Deuteronomy cover large sections of the Levitical legislation,
e.g., Lev. xi, xiii, xiv., xv., xvii, xviii, xix.; Num. xviii 20 ff.
etc. If, with Dr. Driver, we fall back on the assumption
of "old laws," then these old laws must have been so
extremely like those we possess in Leviticus, that it is
hardly worth disputing about the differences, and the
argument against the pre-exilian existence of the Levitical
laws goes for nothing.
The legislation of P, therefore, is in manifold ways
implied in Deuteronomy. On the other hand, the peculiarities
of Deuteronomy are not in any degree reflected in the Levitical
law. There is allusion to the priestly law in Deuteronomy,
but the Priestly Code is apparently ignorant of Deuteronomy,
and certainly does not depend on it.1 What conclusion can
we draw from such a fact but that the Priestly Code is the
earher of the two ?
V. Difficulties of the Critical Theory of
Institutions
An important part of our argument remains, viz., to
show the untenableness of the rival critical explanation of
those institutions for which a post-exilian date is claimed.
The institutions in any case are there in post-exilian times,
and have to be explained. If the account which the Old
Testament itself gives of them is not the true one, how did
they originate ? On this constructive side, as palpably as
anywhere else, the critical theory breaks down. We begin,
as a chief example, with the Ezekiel theory of the origin of
the Levitical order, then shall pass to the consideration of
feasts and other institutions.
1. A chief part of the argument on institutions relates
to the fundamental question — already so often referred to —
of the distinction of priests and Levites. That distinction,
in the view of the critics, did not exist when Deuteronomy
was composed in the reign of Josiah : it is a prominent
feature in the Priests' Code. How was the transition
1 Cf. Dillmann, Nwm.-Jos. p. 668. See list of instances which render
at least probable, in his view (as respects law in S certain), dependence of
Deuteronomy on tiie Priestly C°de, pp. 606-7, 610.

316 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
effected? The answer given to this — hinted at by Graf,1
developed by Kuenen 2 and Wellhausen,8 and now a cardinal
article of faith in all sections of the school 4 — is, through
the degradation of the idolatrous priests, i.e., the "dis
established priests " of the high places, on the lines sketched
by Ezekiel in chap. xliv. 4 ff. In Kuenen's view the man
who is not prepared to accept this explanation is only
deserving of pity.6 Wellhausen indicates his estimate of
the importance of the contention in the remark : " The position
of the Levites is the Achilles heel of the Priestly Code."6
We agree, in the sense that it is the most vulnerable part
in the new scheme.
The Ezekiel theory of the critics is bound up with so
many subsidiary hypotheses, and involves so many question-
begging assumptions, that it is not easy to disentangle it in
its simplicity. Its corner-stone, e.g., is the assumption that
the Levites for whom provision is made in Deut. xviii. 6, 7
are "the disestablished priests "of the bamoth — an assumption
which we regard as baseless. When we turn to Ezekiel
xhv. 4 ff. itself, what we find is that the prophet denounces
the house of Israel for having permitted strangers, un-
circumcised in heart and flesh, to perform the subordinate
services of the sanctuary (vers. 7, 8) ; that he forbids this to
be done in the future (ver. 9) ; that he degrades to the rank
of servants in the sanctuary those priests who had turned
aside, and had caused the people to turn aside, to idolatry
(vers. 10-14) ; and finally, that he confines the priesthood
in his new temple to the sons of Zadok, who alone had
remained faithful (vers. 15, 16). There is certainly in these
verses degradation of priests to that lower rank of service
which the Priestly Code assigns to the Levites ; but this is
very far from proving that we have here the origin of the
order of the Levites, or from explaining the representa
tion of the Priestly Code, which diverges as widely as
it is possible to do from the lines of Ezekiel's ordinance.
There are admittedly difficulties in the interpretation
of Ezekiel's vision ; but the difficulties in the way of
1 Geschicht. Biicher, p. 45.
3 Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 168 ; Hex. pp. 293 ff.: cf. p. 205.
8 Hist, of Israel, pp. 122 ff.
4 Kayser, Smend, Kautzsch, W. R. Smith, Driver, etc. (Konig agrees with
the critics here). •
6 Hex. p. 205. • Hist, of Israel, p. 167,

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 317
accepting this reading of its meaning are to our mind
insurmountable. (1) That the temple service prior to the exile was in a
deplorable condition — that both in and out of the temple the
priesthood had largely fallen into abominable idolatries — all
indications show.1 Irregularities abounded, and the prophet
is sufficient witness that the place which the law gives to
the Leyites had been mostly usurped by uncircumcised
strangers.2 But the first point evidently which claims
notice here is, that this very ministry of the uncircumcised
the prophet denounces as an iniquity, a violation of God's
covenant, and the setting up by the people of keepers of
His charge in His sanctuary for themselves (vers. 7, 8).
This ministry, therefore, was not, in his view, a lawful
thing, but a breach of law, an abomination like the idolatry
itself. What, then, in the prophet's mind, was the lawful
order? who, prior to the degradation of the idolatrous
priests, were the lawful keepers of the charge of the
sanctuary ? Not the priests themselves, for the services in
question were subordinate ministries — the very ministries
ascribed elsewhere to the Levites (ver. 11 ; cf. Num. xviii
3, 4). Is not the inference very plain, though the critics
generally ignore it, that, in Ezekiel's view, there did already
exist a law on this subject, which in practice had been
wantonly violated ? 8 It can hardly be mistaken that the
only properly official classes recognised by the prophet in
the service of the temple are Levitical, and that these are
distinguished into a higher and a lower class — the keepers
of the charge of the house (chap. xl. 45), and the keepers of
the charge of the altar (ver. 46). The unfaithful priests
are punished by being degraded to the lower rank.4
(2) The next point to be borne in mind is, that this
programme of Ezekiel was, and remained, a purely ideal one.
It was probably never intended to have literal realisation ;
it was at least never actually put in force at the return, or
1 Cf., e.g., Jer. vii., viii. ; Ezek. viii.
2 On the view advocated, e.g., by W. R. Smith, O.T. in J. C, pp. 262-3,
that these already are the guards of the sanctuary in the reign of Joash
(1 Kings xi.), cf. Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce Le'vitique, pp. 93 ff.
3 Cf. Delitzsoh, Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 279 ff. ; Van Hoonacker,
Le Sacerdoce Levitique, pp. 191 ff. The prophet would seem to be familiar
with the name "Levites for the lower order distinctively (Ezek. xlviii. 13 —
"And answerable to the border of the priests, the Levites shall have," etpj,
4 Sea Note Eon Levites in Ezekiel.,

318 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
at any earlier time. The degradation it depicts was never
historically carried out ; therefore could not affect the state
of things subsisting after the exile. Scholars have indeed
pleased themselves with pictures of " vehement struggles "
(adumbrated in the story of Korah) on the part of Ezekiel's
degraded priests to regain their lost privileges;1 but these
" struggles " exist nowhere, so far as we know, but in the
critics' own imaginations, for there is no trace in history
that any such degradation ever took place. On the other
hand, we have seen that the distinction of priests and
Levites was already known, and universally recognised, at
the time of the return from exile. The Books of Ezra and
Nehemiah assume it, but in no sense create it. If, there
fore, this distinction was not made by Ezekiel's law directly,
as httle can it have been called forth by the Priests' Code
founded on that law, for the Code did not make its appear
ance till Ezra's time, long after. It follows, in agreement
with what has been said, that it can only be understood as
an inheritance from pre-exilian times.
(3) Still more decisive, perhaps, is the fact that the
Code, when it did come, by no means corresponded with
Ezekiel's picture, on which it is presumed to be based, but
in many respects stood in direct contradiction with Ezekiel.
There is, as already said, nothing in the Code to suggest
" disestablished priests," degradation as a punishment, sub
stitution for uncircumcised strangers, or any of the other
ideas of Ezek. xliv. On the contrary, the Levites are
represented as set apart by Jehovah Himself in the
wilderness for His peculiar service, and their position from
the first is one of privilege and honour.2 Again, in the
1 Kautzsch, e.g., says: "Again in the narrative of the revolt of the
Korahites, now blended in Num.- xvi. with an older account of a political
revolt of the Reubenites, we have a clear reflection of the vehement struggles
(subsequently buried in deep silence [!]), occasioned by the dislike the
non-Zadokites felt to the manner in which they were employed in religious
services." — Lit. of O.T., p. 117. It is thus he accounts for the fewness of
the Levites at the return.
2 Kautzsch says: "According to Ezek. xliv. 10 ff., the sentence which
reduced the former priests of the high places to the inferior services of the
sanctuary was a deserved punishment ; according to the Priests' Code the
service of the Levites, by virtue of a divine appointment, is an honourable
office of which they may be proud " (ibid. p. 117). Kautzsch's theory is, that
the revolts of the non-Zadokites above referred to compelled the priestly
circles "to find another ground for the position of the Levites" (pp.
117-18). Again a pure imagination of the critic.

THE PRIESTLY WHITING. I. THE CODE 319
Code, the priests are not "sons of Zadok" only (a vital
point in Ezekiel), but the "sons of Aaron" generally.
Ezekiel can be conceived of as having modelled his picture on
the basis of the Code by limiting the priestly dignity to the
Zadokites ; the Code can never be explained as a construc
tion from his ideas.
(4) Yet, apparently, this Code, so discrepant with
Ezekiel, harmonised with the people's own recollections and
traditions, since we find that they unhesitatingly received
it. This simple fact, that, according to the history, the
provisions of the Code were received without questioning
by priests, Levites, and people alike, is of itself sufficient to
overthrow the theory that the distinction was a new one,
due to the initiative of Ezekiel. How possibly could such a
thing as the critics suppose ever have happened ? Had the
Zadokites nothing to say about the loss of the exclusive
position given them by Ezekiel ? Were the Levites content
that certain families of their number — the non-Zadokite
Aaronites — should have the priestly prerogatives which
Ezekiel had denied them, while others had not? If the
records do not deceive us, both priests and Levites knew
something of their own past. They had many hnks with
that past by genealogies and otherwise. If the Levites or
their fathers had been disestablished priests of high places,
they must have been perfectly aware of the fact. Yet the
Levites assent to have a position given to them which
agrees neither with their own recollections, nor with the
rights of priesthood alleged to be accorded to them in
Deuteronomy, nor with the degradation theory of Ezekiel —
which is thus condemned on every side as unhistorical.
That such a patent make-believe should have succeeded is
on the face of it incredible. Even had priests and Levites
been willing to acquiesce in the new mock status, the
people on whom the fresh and heavy tithe-burdens fell
would not have been likely to do so. The longer, in fact,
the theory is pondered, the more untenable it must appear.
2. What applies to the critical explanation of the dis
tinction of priests and Levites applies with not less force to
the explanations offered of other institutions, whose pre-
exilic existence is called in question. We take a few of
the more typical instances.
(1) There are the three great feasts of the nation —

320 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
passover, or unleavened bread, the feast of weeks, and
the feast of tabernacles : these are robbed of their historical
reference, and declared to be mere agricultural observances,
locally observed till the age of Josiah, when Deuteronomy
centralised them. The ceremonial character, in particular,
stamped on them by the Priestly Code is held to be wholly
post-exilian. But no tenable account is given of this
sudden rise of agricultural festivals into historical signifi
cance, and of their unquestioned acceptance as feasts having
this historical meaning, in the age of Ezra. Special assault
is made upon the Biblical account of the institution of the
passover, and of its association with the Exodus. Yet we
nave seen that the law in Ex. xii 3 ff. is unintelligible, as
framed for a domestic observance of the passover, unless
it is placed before the centrahsing ordinance in Deutero
nomy; while the latter by its use of this name pesach
(passover),1 its reference to the month Abib (chap. xvi. 1),
and its distinct historical allusions (vers. 3, 6), as clearly
presupposes the older law. The three feasts appear from the
first, in all the Codes, as national (not local) feasts ; 2 and in
every instance, with but one exception, the passover, or feast
of unleavened bread, is directly connected with the Exodus.
That one exception, strange to say, is the most instructive
of all as a refutation of the critical theory. It is the
priestly law of Lev. xxiii. 4 ff. ; yet it alone (1), as said, lacks
a reference to the Exodus; (2) contains the regulation
about presenting a sheaf of first-fruits which gives the feast
any agricultural character it has ; while (3) neither in it,
nor in the law for passover offerings in Num. xxviii. 16 ff,
is mention made even of the paschal lamb.8 So that we
have this curious result, in contradiction of the critical
theory, that the historical reference comes in at the
beginning, and the agricultural at the end of the
development !
How, now, on the other hand, do the critics explain
the name " passover " and the historical reference attached
to this feast ? Only, it must be replied, by again arbitrarily
blotting out the history we have, and indulging in con-
1 Wellhausen says this word "first occurs in Deuteronomy," a statement,
of course, which (1) begs the question as to the date of Ex. xii., and (2)
ignores Ex. xxxiv. 25.
2 Ex. xxiii. 14-19 ; xxxiv. 18-26 ; Lev. xxiii. ; Deut. xvi. 1-17.
* See Note F on Alleged Contradictions in the Passover Laws.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 321
jectures of their own, about which there is no agreement.
Wellhausen, e.g., will have it that the Exodus was, in the
tradition, connected with the demand to be permitted to
ohserve a spring festival, a chief feature of which was the
offering of firstlings. Cause and effect became inverted,
and instead of the festival being the occasion of the
Exodus, it came to be regarded as occasioned by it. Out
of this grew — how we are not told — the story of the slaying
of the firstborn in Egypt. Even so the meaning of the
name "passover" is allowed to be "not clear."1 As the
history stands, both the passover rite, and the dwelling
in booths which gives' the feast of tabernacles its name
(Succoth),2 find their appropriate explanation; but it is
impossible to conceive how, in the full light of history,
these meanings could come to be imported into them at so
late an age as Ezra's.
The notices of the feasts in the history are, it is allowed,
scant. But they are more numerous than Wellhausen
1 admits, and, such as they are, unless again we arbitrarily
reject the narratives, they contradict his theory, and are in
keeping with the law. At the head of the series stands
the observance of the passover in Ex. xii., and the
wilderness observance in Num. ix. 4, 5, which gives rise to
a supplementary ordinance. Then comes the observance of
the passover under Joshua at Gilgal in Josh. v. 10, 11.
Passing the yearly feast of Jehovah at Shiloh (tabernacles ?
Judg. xxi. 19 ; 1 Sam. i. 3, 7, 21), we have a general reference
to *the three feasts in Solomon's reign (1 Kings ix. 25 ; cf.
2 Chron. viii. 13), and special allusions to the feast of
tabernacles in 1 Kings viii. 2, 65, 66 ; xii. 32, 33. Hosea
makes allusion to the dwelling in tents at this feast
(chap. xii. 9). The Chronicler records a great observance
of the passover under Hezekiah in a narrative too detailed
and circumstantial to be the work of invention.8 Then we
come to the great passover of Josiah, of which it is said
that the like of it had not been held " from the days of the
Judges that judged Israel."4 The returned exiles under
Zerubbabel observed both the feast of tabernacles and the
1 Hist, of Israel, pp. 87-88. 2 Lev. xxiii. 39-43.
3 2 Chron. xxx. The Chronicler may be held to "improve " forhomiletio
purposes an existing narrative, but a history like this, without any
foundation for it, would be an absolute fraud.
4 2 Kings xxiii. 21-23 ; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 1 ff.
21

322 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
passover according to known laws,1 and the reading of the
law by Ezra was the occasion of another great observance of
the feast of tabernacles, with special reference to the
requirements of Lev. xxui. Here again it is declared
that such a feast had not been observed "since the days
of Joshua the son of Nun."2 It is a straining of these
passages in Kings and Nehemiah, and a contradiction of
their own testimony, to make them affirm that there had
been no observance of the feasts named in earlier times;
the allusion is evidently to the enthusiasm, spontaneity,
and scrupulous attention to the law, with which the feasts
were observed — in the latter case with special regard to
the "booths."8
(2) As a second example, we may glance at the case
of the sin- and trespass-offerings, of which it is alleged that
the first mention is in Ezekiel.4 Sin- and trespass-offerings
were in their nature occasional, and we might readily be
tempted to suppose that they had fallen largely into disuse
in pre-exilic times. Yet even this would be a rash infer
ence from silence. It iB to be observed that Ezekiel writes
of these offerings, not as something new, but as quite
familiar to his readers;6 they are found also in the Law
of Holiness,6 which, we have seen, precedes Ezekiel, and is,
from all indications, very old. Nor is it true that no earlier
trace of them exists. Ps. xl. cannot be put later than the
exile, and is probably earher, yet in it the sin-offering is
spoken of as a customary sacrifice (ver. 6). Isa. liii 10
declares that the soul of Jehovah's Righteous Servant
is made a " guilt- (trespass-) offering." Kuenen allows that
the " sin-offering " is not unknown to Hosea (chap. iv. 8),
though he fails to find a distinction between the sin- and
the trespass-offering.7 Yet in 2 Kings xii. 16 a clear
reference is made to " trespass-money " and " sin-money,"
which, as Kuenen again grants, must have had a certain
1 Ezra iii. 4 ; vi. 22. 2 Neh. viii. 11 ff.
8 Hos. xii. 9 may suggest that usage has substituted "tents" for
literal "booths."
4 "Of this kind of sacrifice," says Wellhausen, "not a single trace
occurs in the Old Testament before Ezekiel." — Hist, of Israel, p. 73.
6 Ezek. xl. 39 ; xiii. 13 ; xliii. 19 ; xliv. 29 ; xlvi. 20. Cf. Dr. A. B.
Davidson, Ezekiel, Introd. p. liv. Cf. Note C.
• Lev. xix. 21, 22 ; xxiii. 19.
7 Hex. p. 210 ; cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 114. Even in the law
the distinction is not very rigorously kept.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 323
connection with the Levitical offerings.1 Even if it be
supposed that a custom had grown up of commutation of
the sacrifices by " pecuniary fines," the sacrifices and the
law requiring them are still presupposed. The idea of a
trespass- offering was present in some form to the minds
of the Philistines in the time of the Judges : 2 a fact which
shows it to be old. No proper explanation is given of the
when, where, or how, of the introduction of these sacrifices,
on the critical theory.
(3) One of the most daring strokes of the Wellhausen
criticism is the denial of the existence of the incense-offering
in pre-exilic times, and, as involved in this, the denial of an
altar of incense, not simply in the supposed imaginary
tabernacle, but even in the Solomonic temple. Wellhausen
goes still further, and, in face of the express statements in
1 Mace, i 21 ff. ; iv. 49, that the golden altar and golden
table were both carried away by Antiochus Epiphanes,
and renewed at the feast of the dedication, casts doubt on
the existence of an altar of incense even in the second
temple.8 The chief ground for these denials is the fact
that, in Exodus, the command for the making of the altar
of incense does not appear where we might expect it, in chaps.
xxv.-xxix., but at the commencement of chap. xxx. How
arbitrary the procedure is, is shown by the clear testimony
of at least four passages of the history (1 Kings vi. 20, 22 ;
vii. 48 ; ix. 25 ; cf. 2 Chron. iv. 19) to the construction and
presence of the golden altar in the temple of Solomon.4
The critical theory of the tithe-laws, of the Levitical
cities as transformations of the Bamoth, and other matters,
have already been referred to.6
3. In conducting the above argument, we have laid little
stress on incidental words or allusions in either the historical
or the prophetical books which might seem to indicate
acquaintance with the Levitical legislation. These allu
sions, though not decisive in themselves, are more numerous
1 Hex. p. 211 ; cf. Delitzsch, Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 8.
2 1 Sam. vi. 3. ' Hist, of Israel, pp. 64-67.
4 Delitzsch admirably shows the groundlessness of Wellhausen's general
reasonings, and particularly of his assertion that " the golden altar in the
sanctuary is originally simply the golden table " (Hist. p. 66), in his article
on the subject in Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 113 ff. Ezekiel, whom Wellhausen
cites in his favour, is shown to be really a witness against him.
8 See above, pp. 275, 290, etc.

324 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES.
than the critics are wont to allow, and, when a pre-exilian
origin of Levitical laws is independently rendered
probable, acquire enhanced importance. Joel, e.g., which
used to be regarded as one of the earhest of the prophetical
books, has many allusions which suggest the ritual code —
the sanctuary and its altar in Zion, priests, blowing of
trumpets, fasts, solemn assembhes, meal and drink-offerings,
etc.1 — and is now, largely for this very reason, regarded by
the Wellhausen school as post-exilian.2 Yet we question
if the allusions in Joel are more definite than those of the
earher prophets, or would, on critical principles, suffice any
more than these, to establish a knowledge of the written
law, which is yet allowed to have been in existence when he
wrote. Not to dwell on Amos (e.g., chap. v. 21, 22), we may
cite such a passage as Isa. i 13, 14 : " Bring no more vain
oblations ; incense is an abomination unto Me ; new moons
and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, — I cannot away with
iniquity and the solemn meeting. Your new moons and
your appointed feasts My soul hateth," etc. (cf. ver. 11 ;
chaps, iv. 5 ; xxxiii. 20 — " the city of our solemnities "). The
vocabulary of this passage — "assembly" (convocation),
" solemn meeting," " appointed feasts," etc. — and the allusions
to festivals and sacrifices, are entirely suggestive of the
Levitical law (cf . Lev. xxiii. ; Num. xxviii. ; cf. Deut. xvi. 8).
Reference was before made to the allusions in the prophets
to a cycle of feasts, of which little or nothing is said in the
history. Thus, Isa. xxix. 1 : " Let the feasts come round " ; or
Nah. i 15 : "Keep thy feasts, O Judah, perform thy vows."
It cannot be overlooked, further, that the prophets
constantly assume the people to be in possession of " statutes,"
or " statutes and judgments " 8 — i.e., of fixed laws — evidently
of considerable extent, and, we must suppose, written. That
1 Joel i. 9, 13, 14 ; ii. 1, 15-17, etc.
2Duhm, who led the way here, said in his Theol. der Proph. (1875)
that at that time scholars almost unanimously put Joel early (p. 71). His
own proofs are mainly a begging of the question of the post-exiiian origin of
the Law. He describes Joel as an "epigon," with a great gift for form,
but not much burdened with thoughts. The theory is combated by
Delitzsch, Orelli, Reuss, Professor J. Robertson, Kirkpatrick, and others.
Delitzsch said of it : " The bringing down of Joel into the post-exilic age by
Duhm, Merx, Stade, and others, is one of the most rotten fruits of the
modern criticism." — O.T. Hist, of Redemption, p. 113 (E.T.).
8 Amos ii. 4 (R.V.) ; Jer. xliv. 10 ; Ezek. v. 6, xi. 12, etc. Cf. Lev.
xvii.-xxvi., and Deuteronomy (constantly).

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 325
such " statutes " were covered by the word torah (instruction,
law) we see no reason to doubt. Here comes in that much-
debated passage, Hos. viii. 12 : " Though I write for him my
law in ten thousand precepts (R.V. marg., " wrote for him
the ten thousand things of my law "), they are counted as
a strange thing." x If this does not point to written law of
considerable compass, it is difficult to know what form of
words would. Smend, at an earlier stage, found, as was
before shown,2 Hosea and Amos impregnated with
Levitismus (e.g., Hos. ix. 3-5). It may be observed that
Hosea has also, in the view of many, unmistakable assonances
with Deuteronomy.8 When to these indications in the
prophets we add what was before said of allusions in the
historical books to ark, tabernacle, Aaronic priesthood, high
priest, ephod, shewbread, etc., and of the evidence which
these books afford of a knowledge of festivals, of sacrifices
(burnt - offerings, peace - offerings, meal - offerings, drink-
offerings, probably sin-offerings as well), of ritual of worship,
of laws of purity, of clean and unclean food, of leprosy, of
consanguinity, prohibitions of eating blood, etc. — we may
begin to feel, with Dillmann, that the allusions in history
and prophecy are well-nigh as numerous as we had any
right to expect.
Of the law itself, we would only say in closing, in
opposition to the purely secular, and often unworthy, views
of its origin we have been discussing, that it is pervaded by
a spirit of holiness, and, in its aim and structure, is as
unique as all the other parts of the Jewish religion.
1 Wellhausen renders this passage : " How many soever my instructions
may be, they are counted those of a stranger." — Hist, of Israel, p. 57. This
leaves out altogether the word of chief importance — "write." Delitzsch
thinks that passages like Hos. iv. 6 ; viii. 1 ; Amos ii. 4 ; Isa. i. 11-14 show
" that a codex of the Mosaic law was already in existence in the time of the
prophets of the eighth century," and says : " with the last passage we may
compare Hos. viii. 12, which should be translated, ' were I to write for him
the myriads of my law, they would be regarded as strange,' that is, a still
mire extensive Torah would have the same fate as the existing one." Then,
after quoting Smend's translation, "I wrote for him myriads of my law,"
he says: "These words of Hosea certainly indicate, as even Schrader
acknowledges, the existence of a divinely obligatory law in the form of a
codex."— Mess. Prophecies (E.T. 1880), p. 11.
3 See above, p. 159.
8 Cf. Hos. ii. 8, xii. 8, xiii. 6, with Deut. vii. 13, viii. 7-20, xi. 14-16 ;
Hos. viii. 11, with Deut. xii. ; Hos. xii. 13, with Deut. xviii. 18 ; Hos. iv.
4, with Deut. xvii. 12 ; Hos. viii. 13, ix. 3, with Deut. xxviii. 68 ; Hos.
xi. 8. with Deut. xxix. 23 ; Hos. xii. 7, with Deut. xxv. 13-16, etc.

326 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Whatever the formal resemblances, the Levitical law had
nothing essentially in common with heathen ritual, but
rested on a basis of its own. No heathen religion had a
system based on the idea of the hohness of God, and
governed by the design of restoring and maintaining
fellowship with God, and the peace of conscience of the
worshipper, by the grace of atonement. For this was the
real nature of the Levitical system. It was designed in all
its parts to impress on the mind of the worshipper a sense
of the separation which sin had put between him and the
holy God, and provided a means by which the people,
notwithstanding their sin, could have access to God, and
enjoy His favour.1 There is nothing in this, if the Bible's
own view of the course of revelation is accepted, incom
patible with its early origin. It is one of the groundless
assumptions of the newer theory that the idea of expiation
by sacrifice was foreign to the pre-exihan, and earher
Israelitish, mind. One sufficient proof to the contrary is
furnished in 1 Sam. iii. 14 : " Therefore I have sworn unto
the house of Eh, that the iniquity of Eli's house shall not
be purged (" atoned for," the Levitical word) with sacrifice
nor offering for ever."
VI. Time of Origin of the Levitical Law
To sum up our argument thus far : we have sought to
show, on both moral and historical grounds, and by positive
proof to the contrary, that the Graf-Wellhausen theory of a
post-exilian origin of the Levitical Code cannot be upheld.
Its main stronghold is the argument from silence ; but that
silence is neither so complete as is alleged, nor are the
inferences drawn from it warranted. By a similar argument,
if Deuteronomy were left out of "account, it might be proved
that the Book of the Covenant also, as a written Code, was
not known before the exile. Yet Deuteronomy shows how
erroneous would be such an inference.
If, however, the Priestly Code is not a post-exilian
production, when did it originate? Here we pass over
unreservedly to the standpoint of Wellhausen as against
those mediating critics, who, with more or less admission of
antiquity in parts, assume the law as a whole to have taken
1 Cf. Heb. ix., x. On Unity of the Law see above, p. 294.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 327
shape in the hands of the priests about the ninth century
B.c, or between that and the time of Deuteronomy — but
still only as a quasi-private document, — a " programme "
struggling for recognition and very imperfectly attaining
it, — and receiving changes and additions as far down as the
exile. Such, in general statement, is the midway theory
advocated by critics like Noldeke, Dillmann, Kittel, and
Baudissin, and against it the more compact and internally
consistent hypothesis of Kuenen and Wellhausen bears
down with irresistible force.1 Such a theory is strong,
indeed, in its proof, as against the Wellhausen contention,
that the Levitical law is older than Deuteronomy, no trace
of whose existence it betrays, while Deuteronomy very
evidently shows traces of its influence, but it is weak as
water in arguing for the existence of a Code which embodies
the idea of the unity of the sanctuary a century or two
before Deuteronomy was heard of, while yet holding, with
the De Wette school, that this idea first came to recognition,
or at least to influence, with the publication of Deuteronomy
in the reign of Josiah. Kuenen is fully justified in protest
ing against this " idea of the passive existence of these laws
for ages before they had any practical influence." 2 A
theory which, like that of the older scholars, carries back
the bulk of the laws to Mosaic or immediately post-Mosaic
•times, or, again, a theory which, like Wellhausen's, brings
them all down to times subsequent to Deuteronomy, —
which means, practically, to the exile or after, —
can be understood: there is coherence in it. But this
intermediate theory, which ascribes to the laws an un
acknowledged existence — suspends them, as it were, in the
air — in the days of the kings, and supposes them to have
remained inoperative for centuries, is impotent against the
assaults of its energetic opponents.8 It encounters all the
difficulties of the older theory, arising from the supposed
1 On Nbldeke's views, cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, pp. 46-51 ;
Kuenen, Hex. Introd. pp. xxxvi ff. For Noldeke also the tabernacle is "a
mere creature of the brain." On the theory generally, see Note G on the
Mediating View of the Priestly Code.
2 As aoove, p. xxxi.
"Wellhausen ridicules those "who in blind faith hold fast, not to the
Church tradition-,— there would be sense in that — but to a hypothesis which
is but two decades old, viz., De Wette's discovery that Deuteronomy is more
recent than the Priests' Code." — Geschichte Israels, p. 173 fist edit.: the
passage is dropped in Proleg.).

328 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
silence of the history and conflict with Deuteronomy, and
has none of its compensating advantages. For the law
presents in no sense the aspect of a private priestly pro
gramme, strugghng, without success, for recognition and
acceptance. It rests on very definite principles and ideas,
gives itself out in all seriousness as a Code of wilderness
legislation (why, it may be asked, should ninth century
priests throw their "programme" into this form?), and
presents not the slightest trace of hesitation or doubt
in its demands. It ascribes its legislation in obvious good
faith to Moses, or, more correctly, to God through him.
We agree, therefore, that this middle theory of a " trance
like" existence of the Levitical Code in the ninth or
eighth century, to the priestly circles of which it owed its
origin, cannot stand before the rigorous logic of the newer
criticism. It is such theories which give the Wellhausen
criticism its "case." We reckon it, indeed, one of the
greatest services of the Graf-Wellhausen scheme that it
effectually cuts out this mediating, but logically helpless
view which weakly contests the ground with it, and leaves
us fairly face to face with the ultimate alternative^ — a post-
exilian origin of the law, which many reasons show to be
untenable, or a real antiquity of the law answerable to its
own profession.
It is involved in what has been said that it is the latter
alternative which we adopt, and so come back to the older
position of a substantially Mosaic origin of the laws. It is
not necessarily implied in this that Moses wrote all these
laws, or any one of them with his own pen ; or that they
were all written down at one time ; or that they underwent
no subsequent changes in drafting or development ; or that
the collection of them was not a more or less gradual
process ; or that there may not have been smaller collections,
such, e.g., as that lying at the basis of the Law of Holiness —
in circulation and use prior to the final collection, or
codification, as we now have it. There is much plausibility
in Dillmann's conjecture that the Law of Holiness (Lev.
xvii-xxvi.), with its Sinaitic signature (chap. xxvi. 46), its
constantly recurring formula, " I am Jehovah your God," and
its references to deliverance from the bondage to Egypt, in
its original form stood after the Book of the Covenant in
Exodus (cf. chap. xxiv. 12), as a summary of the priestly

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. I. THE CODE 329
legislation of Sinai.1 However this may be — and we lay no
stress upon it — there appears no good ground for assuming
that the general codification was not completed at a very
early date, possibly before the relapse in the time of the
Judges, and probably not later than the early days of the
monarchy. There is nothing we can discover which points
to a later date ; though it does not follow that there may
not have been minor modifications and adjustments after.2
1 Dillmann, Ex.-Lev. pp. 261, 534.
• See further below, pp. 372 ff.

CHAPTER X
Difficulties ano perplexities of tbe Critical 1b?po=
tbesis: Ube lpriestlg Mritfng. II. TEbe 2>ocu=
ment

*n

"A really vivid picture of the manner in which the documents are
interwoven cannot be given by merely stating the numbers of the verses.
And it is just as impossible to state with each single verse or section whether
it is assigned to the document in question by all investigators or by the
majority or only by a few. In the Pentateuch and in the Book of Joshua
it is only with regard to P that something like unanimity has been reached."
— Kautzsch. " In the present state of Hexateuch criticism the weightiest question is
not, how much of the Pentateuch, as it comes to us, has Moses himself
written . . . but this is the chief question: Does the Priestly Writing
contain trustworthy accounts of the time and work of Moses, or is everything
narrated in it, as the modern * science ' maintains, only defacement, fiction,
yea, ' the merest fiction,' and full of contradictions with the (so-called) alone
old tradition offered by J and E ? I venture to say that in many cases the
alleged contradiction is not present ; elsewhere the word of Augustine holds
good, Distingue tempora et concordabit scriptura ; and in yet other places the
difficulty is occasioned through glosses of other readers — glosses for which
we cannot make the redactor or redactors responsible." — Stkack.
" I suppress my regret that Wellhausen has still not advanced to the
point of recognising in the firmly-defined writer Q [=P], whose narrative
is composed with regard to JE, and enclasps this element, as taking the
place of the inner content lacking to itself, the everywhere sought for and
nowhere found E." — Klostermann.

CHAPTER X
DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES OF THE CRITI
CAL HYPOTHESIS: THE PRIESTLY WRITING.
II. THE DOCUMENT
In nothing are critics of all schools more at one than
in the recognition of a writing, partly historical and partly
legislative, running through the Pentateuch and Joshua,
which, from its linguistic and other traits, has been
variously described, in the course of opinion, as the Elohist
document, the Grundschrift (primary document), the 1st
Elohist, the Priestly Writing, the Priests' Code, or simply
P.1 Yet the history of opinion on this Priestly Writmg,
as on other parts of the documentary theory, has been
a slow, development, and has been marked by at least
four critical stages, the general nature of which has already
been indicated.
1. With reference to the compass of the writing, it
has already been seen that all Elohistic matter, or matter
agreeing with the Elohistic in character and style, was
originally assigned to this assumed fundamental document.
Even here, indeed, it was soon found necessary to make
distinctions and multiply parts, but these variations may at
present be disregarded. The first critical point was reached
when, on the ground of its greater affinity with the Jehovist,
Hupfeld removed a considerable part of this Elohistic matter,
and set it up as a separate document, thenceforth known
as E, or the 2nd Elohist. Previously much stress had
been laid on the unity and completeness of the Elohistic
document, as giving " a connected narrative of the theocracy "
from the creation to the settlement in Canaan.2 Now,
1 Wellhausen uses the symbol Q (Quatuor— Book of the Four Covenants) ;
Dillmann and others use A for this document.
2 Cf. Bleek, Introd. i. p. 290. 838

334 DD7FICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
however, that the 2nd Elohist was cut out of it,
extremely httle, as will be shown, was left to the older
writer in Genesis after chap, xvii, and it was felt
to be curious that the 1st Elohist should become so
extremely fragmentary just where the new writer came
in. 2. In respect to the age of the document, we have seen
how, originally, the Elohistic document was all but uni
versally recognised as the fundamental part, or Grundschrift,
of the Pentateuch, while the Jehovist was viewed as
supplementary.1 A change was prepared for here also by
Hupfeld's contention that J and E were independent
histories. Then came the Graf-Wellhausen upturning,
by which the supposed Grundschrift was lifted from the
beginning of the hterary history, and carried down bodily
to its close. Graf, however, as was formerly mentioned,
did not at first contemplate so great a revolution. He
brought the Levitical laws down to the exile, but was
content to leave the Elohistic history in its old place — prior
to Deuteronomy. Subsequently, in deference to Kuenen,
he renounced that view, and accepted the late date for
both.2 It is carefully to be observed that it was not
critical reasons, but a dogmatic consideration — the supposed
necessity of keeping history and laws together — which led
Graf to this tour deforce as respects the P history.
3. A difference next emerged in respect of the inde
pendence of the document. In putting the Priestly
Writing late, Graf felt that the ground was taken from
the older view that the Grundschrift was an independent
document, complete in itself, and he sought to show, as
Kuenen states it, " that its narratives not only presuppose
those of the Yahwist, but were intended from the first'
to supplement them, and to constitute a single whole with
?
1 See above, p. 201.
2 See above, p. 200. Colenso, in Pent. Pt. vi. pp. 579 ff., adhered to, and
contended strongly for, Grafs original view of the history : thus also in
Pt. vii. Carpenter says that " he finally acquiesced in the modern view." —
Hex. i. p. 69. If he did, Cheyne does not seem to have known of the
ohange (Founders of Crit. p. 203), and Kuenen only says : "He subsequently
came to the conclusion that he had been at least to some extent mistaken."
— Hex. p. 70 (with reference). We are very certain that whether, under
pressure of the opinion of others, Colenso changed his view or not, he never
refuted his own arguments against the late date. A change of this kind
Would mean the collapse of the reasoning of a great part of his volumes.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 335
them."1 In this, as we shall seek to show, Graf proved
himself more logical, and took up a sounder position, than
Kuenen and Wellhausen, who held to the old assumption
that the Priestly Writing originally subsisted by itself.
4. With respect, finally, to the unity of the writing,
a great change has latterly been brought about (1) by the
splitting up of the P document into a P1, P2, Ps, etc., and (2)
by the abandonment of the idea of a single writer for that
of " schools," whose activity extended over a long period.2
This change also strikes a blow at the idea of the P writing
being a complete and independent history, as was at first
imagined. It will already begin to appear that the problem of the
Priestly Writing is by no means so simple as it is apt to
seem in the neat statements of the text-books. The
difficulties inherent in the current view will, we beheve,
only become clearer on nearer inspection.
L IS THERE A PEIESTLY WKITING IN DISTINCTION
FKOM JE?
The initial question is as to the right to speak of
a Priestly Writing,3 or style of writing, at all in the
Pentateuch, in distinction from JE, already considered.
Here it is at once to be admitted that the case stands
somewhat differently from what it did with JE. It cannot,
we think, be reasonably disputed, and only a few critics of
the present day, even among the more conservatively
disposed,4 would be prepared to deny, that the sections
ordinarily attributed to P have a vocabulary, and a
1 Hex. pp. xxx, xxxi. See below, p. 341.
2 Graf also originally explained in this way the resemblance of the style
of the Levitical laws to the P sections in Genesis. Thus on Gen. xvii. :
"We can only conclude that this older law of circumcision served as
a model in formulating laws during the exile and after it, with an aim
at antiquity ... or that these formulae were generally at all times usual
in certain circles of priestly legislators, from whom the composition of that
law proceeded." — Geschicht. Bucher, p. 93.
8 In using this customary designation we by no means commit ourselves
to the position that the authors are necessarily priests. Colenso vigorously
combats the idea that the Elohistic sections in Genesis are priestly, cf. Pent.
Pt. vi. pp. .581 ff. ; App. pp. 126 ff.
4 Thus the late Principal Cave, as already mentioned, in his Inspiration
of the O.T., distinguishes an Elohistic and a Jehovistic writing in Genesis,
inclining to attribute both to Moses.

336 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
stylistic character, of their own, which render them in the
main readily distinguishable. The case for the distinc
tion, indeed, is often enormously overdriven. The long
lists of words alleged to be peculiar to P admit of great
reduction, many of the marks assumed for the document
are no sure criteria, the skill that distinguishes a P1, P2, P3,
P4 is continually to be distrusted, some of the descriptions
of the P style are little better than caricatures.1 Yet on
the whole it is a distinct style. It is a style stately and
impressive of its own kind ; in such a chapter as Gen. i. rising
to sublimity, in narrative often exhibiting a grave dignity,
as in Gen. xxiii, occasionally, again, as in the story of
Gen. xxxiv., not readily distinguishable 'from that of JE.2
It is a style, however, less flowing, lively, picturesque,
anthropomorphic than that of JE ; more formal, circum
stantial, precise. We should speak of it in the Book of
Genesis as less a priest-like than a lawyer-like style; the
style of a hand trained to work with laws, genealogies,
chronologies, to put things in regular and methodical shape,
to give unity and exactitude to looser compositions. It
is marked by general adherence to the name " Elohim " till
the revelation of the name Jehovah in Ex. vi. 2 ff.
We have referred to the limitations with which the
statements often made as to the vocabulary, and other
supposed marks of the P document, are to be received,
and, to form a just idea of the writing, these also need to
be remembered. In sifting the hsts of words and phrases
put forth as signs' of this document,3 we are speedily struck
with the fact that many of them occur only once or twice
1 Wellhausen exhausts the vocabulary of contempt in conveying his idea
of the pedantry, verboseness, insufferable tediousness, and barrenness of the
Priests' Code. " Art-products of pedantry. . . . One would imagine that
he was giving specifications to measurers for estimates, or that he was
writing for carpet-makers or upholsterers. ... Of a piece with this
tendency is an indescribable pedantry, belonging to the very being of the
author of the Priestly Code. . . . Nor is it any sign of originality, rather
of senility," etc. — Hist, of Israel, pp. 337, 348, 350, 353. Addis consider
ately grants that the "intolerable pedantry" of the Priestly Writer in
Ex. xxxiv. -xl. is due more to " the successors of the Priestly Writer
and his school " than to the Priestly Writer himself. — Hex. i. p. lxix.
2 What most critics ascribe to P in this narrative, Colenso gives to J.
See further below, p. 352.
8 The lists may be seen in detail in jDillmann, Driver, Carpenter, West
phal, etc. The reader will do well to note how small a proportion of them
is carried on to Joshua.

THE PRLESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 337
in the Book of Genesis, or in the whole Pentateuch ; that
some belong to particular passages from the nature of their
subject, and are not general in P, or elsewhere ; that some
are found also in JE ; that other examples are doubtful (JE
or P) ; that within the limits of P itself the language varies
greatly, and in very few cases are the words uniformly
distributed through the sections. This statement may be
briefly illustrated. There are few better examples of the
words and phrases of P than the following: "After his
(their) land," "be fruitful and multiply," "male and
female," "swarm," "establish (give) a covenant" (JE has
" cut " = make), "self -same day," "possession," "create,"
" expire " (A.V. " die," Gen. vi 17, etc.), " substance," etc.
Yet of these, " kind," " swarm," " male and female," occur in
Genesis only in the narratives of the creation and flood.
"Kind" occurs elsewhere only in the laws of clean and
unclean food, Lev. xi. (P) and Deut. xiv. (D) ; " swarm " in
the same laws, but also in Ex. viii. 3 (JE); "male and
female" three times in ritual passages in Leviticus.
"Create" (bar a) occurs only in Gen. i.-ii. 4; v. 1 (P),
and chap, vi 7 (J), with Deut. iv. 32 (D). "Substance"
occurs five times in P passages in Genesis, but also in
Gen. xiv. (five times), and chap. xv. 14 — which are not
P ; elsewhere twice in Numbers. We are probably not un
warranted in regarding such formulae as "be fruitful and
multiply," " establish My covenant," preserved in Gen. i, ix.,
xvii., etc., as very old, and belonging to pre-Mosaic tradition
of covenant and promise.1 It is thus evident that many
of the alleged marks of P are absent from the greater part
of the P writing just as much as from JE ; 2 too much stress,
therefore, should not be laid on them. The significant thing
is that where they do occur, and are repeated, it is mostly
1 P varies the formula about multiplying, e.g., in Ex. i. 7 ; and the JE
passages that follow in Ex. i. have clear verbal references to P's language
(vers. 9, 10, 12, 20— in Heb.).
2 We cannot follow the late Dr. Green in his denial of a distinct literary
hand in P, but that able scholar is surely justified in pointing out that
"only two words or phrases noted as characteristic of P in chap. i. occur
again in Genesis after chap, ix.," and that " after the covenant with Abraham
(chap, xvii.), which recalls that of Noah (chap, ix.)^ almost every mark of P
in the preceding part of Genesis disappears entirely. Scarcely a word or
phrase that is reckoned characteristic of P in chaps, xvii. or xxiii. is found
in later chapters of Genesis, except where the transactions of the latter are
explicitly referred to, or the promises of the former are repeated." — Genesis,
p. 553. 32

333 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
in P passages. The wide statements one meets with on
this subject need, in fact, constantly to be checked. Mr.
Addis, e.g., writes : " He (the Priestly Writer) says ' Paddan-
Aram,' not, like the other writers, ' Aram of the two rivers.' " 1
Yet this latter designation (Aram - Naharaim) actually
occurs only once altogether (Gen. xxiv. 10). "Destroy,"
sometimes claimed as a P word, occurs, outside the
narrative of the flood (Gen. vi 13, 17; ix. 11, 15), only
once in P (Gen xix. 29), while it is found repeatedly in
JE passages. Many of the other criteria of distinction
of P from JE are equally insecure, or depend on false
assumptions. Wellhausen, e.g., finds in P the idea of
"sin, as the root of ruin, explaining it, and capable of
being got rid of," in contrast with J, who is marked " by
a peculiar sombre earnestness . . . almost bordering on
pessimism ; as if mankind were groaning under some terrible
weight, the pressure not so much of sin as of creaturehood." 2
Yet P, we are often told, has no knowledge of the fall,
while J has. Elsewhere, also, it is P who is represented
as gloomy, monotonous, and serious.3 Kuenen makes it a
fault of P that he is " completely dominated by his theory
of a graduated progress alike of the history of mankind
and of the divine revelation," i as if this were not equally
true of JE.6

II. Question of the Unitt and Independence
of the Priestly Writing
When the existence of a P writing, or quality of writing,
in the Pentateuch has been ascertained, we are still only at
the beginning of our investigation. Is this alleged document
a unity ? Had it ever an independent existence ? How is
it related to JE ? Of these questions the most funda
mental is that which relates to P's existence as an
independent document, but it will clear the way for deahng
1 Hex. p. lxxiii (italics ours).
3 Hist, of Israel, pp. 314-15. Dillmann, on the other hand, declares
of J that "especially of all the three narrators does he show the deepest
knowledge of the nature, origin, and growth of sin." — Genesis, i. p. 15.
Neither P nor E, according to these writers, have any account of the
fall. 1 Hist, of Israel, p. 81. 4 Hex. p. 301.
• See abii*"!, ». 62.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 339
with this to consider briefly, first, the question of its unity
and homogeneous character.
1. The old idea of P was that, whatever its date, it
was essentially a connected narrative from a single pen,
though naturally working up older materials. We have
seen that the case is fundamentally altered when the
individual writer is transformed into a "school." With
the assumption of a series of priestly writers, belonging to
yet wider "circles," the later members of the succession
inheriting the vocabulary and methods of the earlier and
continuing their work, unity of composition tends to
disappear. It is now open to account for resemblance of
style by "imitation." As in regard to Deuteronomy we
have a D2, who successfully " imitates " the ideas and style
of D1, with numerous Deuteronomic revisers of historical
books later ; 1 so we can now speak of a P2, P3, etc., who
"imitate" the style of P1, of an author of the Law of
Holiness who "imitates" Ezekiel,2 of a P writer in the
Book of Joshua who "imitates" the P of Leviticus,3 etc.
On this new basis it can no longer be urged that similarity
of style means necessarily sameness of author, or pleaded
that the author who drew up the Levitical laws must be
identical with the author of the P sections in Genesis.
There is no longer anything to preclude the supposition of
Delitzsch, formerly referred to, that the literary activity of
the Elohistic pen may reach back to times nearly approach
ing those of Moses ; 4 or even the behef , if one is disposed
to entertain it, that its earlier models go back beyond the
time of Moses.6 The protocol style characteristic of this
writing was certainly not the invention of the people of
Israel, nor its peculiar property ; there are, besides, marked
features distinguishing the Elohist in Genesis from the
1 Cf. Kuenen, as quoted above, p. 252 : "The great similarity [of Deut.
i.-iv. to the rest of the book] must be explained as the result of imitation." —
Hex. i. p. 117. "It hardly seems possible to ascribe the Deuteronomic
recension [of Joshua] to a single author ; nor is there anything against our
supposing several hands to have been at work on the same lines " (p. 131).
2 See above, p. 309. The explanation, says Kuenen, of the relation
between Ezekiel and P1 is found "in the supposition that P1 was acquainted
with the priest-prophet, imitated him and worked on in his spirit. ... It
follows that in Lev. xxvi., where P1 coincides with Ezekiel, he is imitating
him — sometimes word for word." — Ibid. pp. 276, 287.
• See above, pp. 214 ff. 4 Genesis, i. p. 48. See above, p. 207.
5 Gen. xiv. shows traces of this P style, though probably an old
independent source.

340 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Levitical writer or writers in the middle books. Colenso,
e.g., in support of this distinction, draws attention to the
curious fact that "the peculiarities of expression which
distinguish the wo?t-Elohistic portions of Genesis, — and
which the Elohist never employs, — appear, almost all of them,
in the Levitical laws or in Ezekiel." x Colenso himself
supposes that the original Elohistic writing ends with
Ex. vi 2-5.2 What is more to our purpose, Wellhausen,
on his part, finds that after Exodus "the independent
main stock of the Priestly Code more and more gives way
to later additions, and ceases altogether, it appears, at the
death of Moses."3 He excludes from it the priestly
portions of the Book of Joshua.4
We do not require to adopt any of these theories to
admit that the facts just noticed with regard to the
differences of vocabulary and style in different parts of the
P writing give probabihty to the idea, within, however,
narrower limits, of a process of composition, rather than of a
single author. With this strikingly accords the altered
relations which the P writer is found to sustain to JE in
Genesis, in the middle books of the Pentateuch, and in the
Book of Joshua, respectively. In Genesis, as is universally
admitted, P furnishes the systematic "framework" into
which the remaining narratives are fitted.6 In the middle
books the systematic arrangement disappears. The parts
(JE, P) appear as co-ordinate, and are more closely fused
together; the narrative in the main follows a simple
chronological order ; 6 the laws are interspersed, singly, or
in masses, as occasion offers. In Joshua, finally, it is the
1 Pent. Pt. vi. p. 583 (italics his). We should prefer to say, "many
of them." Colenso makes large use of this principle of "imitation.
According to him, later writers "affected the language" of the Elohist
(p. 585): "The following [in Lev. xxvi.] appear to be imitations of
expressions in Deuteronomy" (App. p. 3): "We can only conclude that
the resemblance in question has arisen from a deliberate attempt of the
Levitical writer to imitate the phraseology of the Elohist " (App. p. 126) ;
though he can on occasion rebuke Kuenen for his use of it (App. p. 144).
Similarly Graf, Gesch. Bucher, p. 93.
2 Ibid., p. 576 ; App. pp. 116 ff. ; cf. Pt. v. pp. 197-211.
• Hist, of Israel, p. 357. 4 Ibid. See above, p. 216.
e "It actually forms," says Kautzsch, "(at least in Genesis) the frame
work in which the united whole is fitted." — Lit. of 0. T., p. 33. Cf. Driver,
Genesis, Introd. pp. ii, iii, vi ; Dillmann, Genesis, i. p. 16.
6 This formed the ground on which Principal Cave based his "Journal"
theory of the origin of these narratives. — Inspir. ofO.T., pp. 230 ff., 239 ff.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 341
JE narrative which furnishes the basis, while the priestly
parts appear as supplementary or filling in.1 The sig
nificance of this important fact will appear as we proceed.
2. We come now to the principal question of the
independence of the Priestly Writing? Was P ever a
distinct or self -subsisting document? Here Graf, as we
saw, severed himself from his fellow-critics, and surely with
good logical reason. For once that (1) the supplementary
theory was abandoned, and J was erected into an inde
pendent history; (2) E was cut out of the Grundschrift,
thereby reducing the latter after Gen. xvii to the smallest
dimensions; (3) the unity of the Priestly Writing was
piecemeal surrendered ; and (4) P was removed down to the
exile, long after JE had attained a recognised authority,2
nearly every tenable ground for maintaining the inde
pendence of the document was taken away. The most
convincing reasons, however, against the independence are
those drawn from the character of the writing itself, and
from its relations to JE. This must be looked into with
some care.
(1) The structure of the writing speaks in the strongest
way against the theory of its original independence.
Reference has already been made to the claim that P, taken
by itself, furnishes us with a connected and nearly complete
narrative from the creation to the conquest. Kuenen,
speaking for the critics, assures us that the P history in
Genesis "has come down to us nearly, but not quite
complete " ; 3 and we are frequently told, as by Colenso, how
its narrative "forms a continuous and connected whole
almost from beginning to end." 4 It is not easy to under
stand how, if it was, as we were then equally assured, a
" connected whole " in the days of Tuch and Bleek, before
the excision of the extensive sections now assigned to E, it
can be so stilly after these have been removed. This
completeness of the P history, however.is a matter on which
the ordinary reader is nearly as competent to judge as the
critical scholar, and we can fancy the astonishment with
1 Wellhausen, Hist. pp. 357, 385. See above, p. 215.
3 Cf. Kautzsch, quoted below.
¦ Hex. p. 66.
4 Pent. Pt. vi. p. 582. Cf. Dr. Driver, Genesis, p. iv : " If read con
secutively, apart from the rest of the narrative, it will be found to form a
nearly complete whole."

342 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
which, after looking into the matter for himself, such a'
reader will regard the above dicta. In truth, anything more
fragmentary, broken, incomplete, or generally unsatisfactory
as a connected narrative, it would be difficult to imagine.
As Wellhausen correctly says of it : "As a rule nothing
more is aimed at than to give the mere links and articula
tions of the narratives. It is as if Q ( = P) were the scarlet
thread on which the pearls of JE are hung."1 Or, as
Kautzsch says, the Priests' Writing gives us the pre
liminary history " in such extremely scanty outlines as to
be only comprehensible when we think of the detailed
representation in J and E as universally known." 2 Yet at
times its mere thread of history widens out into complete
and detailed narration, as in the story of creation (Gen. i),
part of the narrative of the flood (chaps, vi-ix.), the covenant
with Abraham (chap, xvii), the burial of Sarah (chap, xxiii.),
the story of Dinah (chap, xxxiv.), Jacob's second visit to
Bethel (chap. xxxv. 8-15). Hiatuses abound,8 as will be seen
more clearly after. From chaps, xi. to xvii. all that is told of
Abraham is comprised in some eight verses, or fragments of
verses ; after that, till the death of Sarah (chap, xxiii.) in
some six verses, or parts of verses. The gaps are most con
spicuous after the entrance (in chap, xx.) of the 2nd Elohist, to
whom, as above said, is transferred most of what was formerly
assigned to the primary document. Thus, in chap. xxv. 19,
we have the heading, " These are the generations of Isaac,"
but of the life of Isaac thus introduced nothing is given,
after ver. 20, but the concluding sentence of ver. 26 : " And
Isaac was threescore years old when she bare them"
(whom?), the notice of Esau's marriage, and the sending
away of Jacob (chaps, xxvi. 34, 35; xxvii. 46-xxviii 9).
Jacob is sent to Paddan-Aram to take a wife, but of his long
residence there, with the exception of two interpolated
verses (chap. xxix. 24, 29), not a syllable is breathed, and we
hear no more of him till he is found returning, rich in goods
and cattle (one verse, chap. xxxi. 18). The patriarch fares,
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 332 ; of. p. 7 : "For the most part the thread of
narrative is extremely thin." For the complete story of P after chap. xii.
see p. 827.
*Lit.ofO.T.,-p. 107.
* Dillmann thinks the document is preserved nearly complete till chap.
xi. 26, after which great gaps occur. — Genesis, pp. 16, 17. It will be seen
below that there are gaps enough in the early part as well.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 343
if possible, still worse in his later history. Gen. xxxvii. 2
reads, "These are the generations of Jacob," but there is
not a scrap more from P till we reach chap, xii 46 : " And
Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh,"
and the descent into Egypt in chap. xlvi. 6 ff. Joseph's
birth had been mentioned (chap. xxxv. 24), but we hear
nothing further of him till suddenly he stands before Pharaoh
as above.1 This is certainly an unexampled specimen of a
connected and " nearly complete " document ! The answer
given, as before,2 by the critics is, that no doubt P had
originally brief notices of the events in the lives of Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, etc., where these gaps occur, but the
" redactor " has omitted them to make room for the more
copious narrations of JE.8 This, in the first place, it must
again be replied, is pure hypothesis — the buttressing of one
critical assumption by another, and does not, besides, as we
shall immediately see, meet the difficulties arising from the
relations of the narratives. But, assuming it to be true,
why still speak of the narrative as we have it as " nearly
complete," and how explain the arbitrary procedure of the
redactor in sometimes leaving the two narratives side by
side, sometimes intimately blending them, sometimes pre
serving a stray verse like Gen. xix. 29, which simply repeats
what has gone before * — but here so largely deleting ?
(2) The alleged independence of the document is further
discredited when we consider it materially — i.e., in the relation
of its subject-matter to that of JE. For here the striking
fact which immediately confronts us is, that the parts of the
history which are lacking in P are precisely those which are
1 Colenso saves himself a little by borrowing a few connecting passages
from JE in the lives of Isaac and Joseph, but these the later critics disallow
to the Elohist.
2 See above, p. 220.
8 To see how far this "omitting" theory is carried — so also with JE,
"mutual mutilations," as Dillmann calls them— one would require to go
over the chapters in detail. See some examples in Kuenen, Hex. p. 67.
4 Kuenen extols the " conservatism " of the redactor, who " scrupulously
inserts even the minor fragments of P in the places that seem best to fit
them, when the more detailed notices of the older documents might have
seemed to a less zealous disciple to have rendered them superfluous." — Ibid.
p. 320. How then explain the deleting 1 This redactor figures in Kuenen's
scheme as E6, but it is explained that he is really " a collective body headed
by the scribe who united the two works, etc. . . . For the most part we
shall have to club them together, and may indicate them by the single
letter R5" (p. 315).

344 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
given us in JE. The converse of this is equally true, that
the elements which are lacking in JE are supplied by P.
Thus, P alone records the making of the ark (Gen. vi. 9-22),
and the ages and deaths of the patriarchs. The story of
Hagar in Gen. xvi. has neither beginning nor end without P,
who alone mentions Ishmael's birth (vers. 15, 16).1 The
elements in the narratives are thus materially united in the
closest fashion. But the intimacy of the relation between P
and JE admits of yet closer determination. So long as the
Jehovist was regarded as a mere supplementer of the Elohist,
it was impossible to assume any knowledge of his narrative
by the latter. Now, however, that the Priestly Writer is
regarded as the later, there is found no difficulty in
admitting, — rather, as furnishing a proof of his posteriority,
the fact is insisted on, — not only that the Priestly Writer is
acquainted with JE, but that his narrative is throughout
parallel with the other.2 The effect of this change in the
point of view, in its bearings on the relations of the
narratives, seems even yet hardly to be fully realised. Not
merely, as formerly shown, are J and E in the fullest sense
parallel narratives, but P, in turn, is parallel with them.
" The priestly author," says Kuenen, " builds on JE through
out." 8 " That P2 and JE run parallel, even in details, is
undeniable ; and hence it follows that they did not spring
up independently of each other. P2 is either the basis of JE
or an excerpt from it."4 The latter, of course, is the
alternative he adopts.6 Wellhausen, in language before
1 The same assumption is made here about JE as above about P, viz. ,
that in all these cases JE had the relevant narrative in his history, but E
has left it out, and, for some reason, substituted P's (see above, p. 343). It
is possible that in some instances omissions may have taken place, but they
are for the most part as problematical in JE as in P.
2 Gunkel stands nearly alone in denying that P used JE in Genesis (cf.
his Genesis, p. lxviii), but he admits that the source of P was one to which
JE "was manifoldly related." But why then not JE, which P must have
known ? Dillmann makes P dependent in part on E (his oldest document),
and says of its relationship to J : " Certainly the relationship in matter
between the two is so great, that of necessity one writing must presuppose
the other." He supposes P to be dependent in part on J or J's sources, but
J in the main to be dependent on P. — Num.-Jos. pp. 656-57. The in
security of such combinations is evident from the fact that the newer
criticism rejects most of them.
» Hex. p. 299. 4 Ibid. p. 301.
* In this sense it is allowed that P is not independent. In an article he
wrote in reply to Graf, Kueneu says: "We can deny the independence of
the priestly passages, and at the same time recognise them as self-subsisting,

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 345
quoted,1 lays great stress on the parallelism and material
identity of the narratives. " The Priestly Code," he tells us,
"runs, as to its historical thread, quite parallel to the
Jehovistic history " ; and, in a note, " The agreement extends,
not only to the thread of the narrative, but also to
particulars, and even to expressions."2 Again: "In the
history of the patriarchs also, the outlines of the narrative
are the same in Q ( = P) and in JE." 8 Here, then, are very
practical admissions that the substance — and more than the
substance 4 — of the two narratives is the same, and we have
seen how closely related and interdependent the narratives
are in their present form. P, in Genesis, we have also seen,
is really not a complete work, but supplies the frame in which
the other narratives are set. Does not the onus of proof
rest on those who maintain that it was ever intended to be
anything else? Is not the hypothesis which the facts of
interrelation and mutual dependence suggest rather that of
collaboration in some form, than of entirely independent
origin ? 6
The principal proof, however, that P cannot be regarded
as an independent document arises when the P writing is
considered textually — i.e., in its inseparable textual inter
weaving with the JE narrative. This is a subject of
sufficient importance and intricacy to be considered under
a separate heading.
i.e., as fragments of a book which once existed in separate form" (Theol.
Tijd. Sept. 1870). But did it ? Graf's later view on this point may be
stated in his own words. He says : "These narratives [of the Grundschrift]
imply everywhere the connection of the circumstantial J narrative ; whereas
they themselves, except a few longer sections, appear only as notices more
or less abrupt, inserted into the narrative " (in Kuenen, as above).
1 Sec Chap. IV. above, p. 107.
2 Hist, of Israel, pp. 295-96. Cf. his illustrations.
8 Ibid. p. 318. Cf. Kautzsch, above, p. 342.
4 It is interesting to note the additional testimony borne by Kuenen
that the Deuteronomic history also consists of recensions of prophetic narra
tives, "in part of more independent compositions, which, however, still
run parallel, in almost every case, with JE, and are dependent on it." —
Hex. pp. 168-69. The substantial agreement of the history in the various
Bources could hardly be more strongly expressed than in the above
quotations. 5 This is substantially the view taken by Klostermann in his Der
Pentateuch, pp. 9, 10. See Note A on Klostermann on the Relation of JE
and P.

346 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:

III. Textual Interrelations of the Priestly
Writtng and JE
The interweaving of P with JE in the actual history
of the Pentateuch is so intimate that it is only by the utmost
critical violence that the different elements can be rent
asunder. To illustrate this fully would carry us much
beyond our limits, but, the point being crucial, it is
necessary to bestow some httle pains on its elucidation.
We begin with the patriarchal period and the Book of
Genesis; then glance at the Mosaic period. The diffi
culties of the critical hypothesis will reveal themselves in
both. 1. We look, first, at the P and JE narratives in Genesis.
The general relation of P to JE in this book, as already
said, is that of " framework." The following, in order of
the book, are examples of the closeness of the textual
relations. (1) With regard to the beginnings of things, how con
stantly is it alleged that " we have two contradictory
accounts of the creation." x It is certain that the narratives
in Gen. i-ii 4 and chap. ii. 4 ff. are quite different in character
and style, and view the work of creation from different
standpoints. But they are not " contradictory " ; they are,
in fact, bound together in the closest manner as comple
mentary. The second narrative, taken by itself, begins
abruptly, with manifest reference to the first : " In the day
that Jehovah Elohim made earth and heaven" (ver. 4).
It is, in truth, a misnomer to speak of chap, ii as an account
of the " creation " at all, in the same sense as chap, i It
contains no account of the creation of either earth or
heaven, or of the general world of vegetation ; 2 its interest
centres in the making of man and woman, and everything
1 Cf. Addis, Hex. i. p. xlviii ; Kuenen, Hex. p. 38, eto.
3 Dillmann says here : " We now expect before or after ver. 7, intimation
of the bringing forth of the plant world and of the finishing of the construc
tion of the world. But nothing of the kind is found. Such a gap car
scarcely have existed originally. It rather seems as if something had been
left out by E, either because it appeared a needless repetition alongside of
chap, i., or because it seemed too little in accordance with chap, i." (This
latter reason should have led to the suppression of much more.) — Genesis,
p. 116. What appears in the narrative is simply the planting of a garden
in Eden as an abode for man (vers. 8, 9).

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 347
in the narrative is regarded from that point of view.1 The
very union of the divine names — in chaps, ii, iii. — indicates
a designed connection of the two narratives which it is
arbitrary to refer to a redactor, instead of to the original
composers of the book.2
We have next, in P, the bare thread of genealogy in
chap. v. (with, however, universal death) to conduct us from
the creation to the flood, when the earth, which God made
"very good" (chap, i 31) is found, without explanation,
" corrupt before God," and " filled with violence " — " for all
flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (chap. vi.
11, 12). Yet we are asked to beheve that P, who is
admittedly acquainted with the JE history, " builds " upon
it, and produces a narrative "parallel" with it, "knows
nothing " of a fall.3 Much more natural is the supposition
that P, who furnishes the "framework" for JE, pre
supposes the JE narrative which it enshrines, and which
in Gen. vi 5-7 contains precisely similar intimations of the
corruption of mankind — proceeding from the fall. Here
for once we have Wellhausen as an ally. " In JE," he
says, " the flood is well led up to ; in Q [ = P] we should be
inclined to ask in surprise how the earth has come all at
once to be so corrupted, after being in the best of order, did
we not know it from JE."4 A fact which shows quite
clearly how far P is from being complete, and how necessary
JE is to its right understanding.
(2) The story of the flood (Gen. vi-ix.), which comes
next, is the classical proof of the distinction of the
1 On the age and origin of these histories, see Chap. XI. pp. 402 ff.
* See above, pp. 226-27. We have here the usual variety of critical
theories. Most ascribe the combination to the redactor ; Reuss postulates a
special document distinct from J and P ; Budde and Gunkel suppose a com
bination of two documents, one using Jehovah, the other Elohim, etc.
8 Thus, e.g., Carpenter : "He knows no Eden, he relates no temptation,
he does not seek to explain the stern conditions of human labour or suffer
ing." — Hex. i. p. 122. But a few sentences further on we read : "The
reader learns with surprise in chap. vi. 11 that corruption and violence filled
the earth." And on p. 132: "If the toledhoth sections do not describe
the origin of evil and the entry of sin and suffering, they are not indifferent
to them, rather does the method of Gen. v. presuppose them, and chap.
vi. 13 record their consequences." Which destroys the " knows nothing.'
4 Hist, of Israel, p. 310. Wellhausen finds many other indications of
dependence of P on JE. E.g., "If in spite of this he (the first man) is
called simply Adam (Gen. v. 2), as if that were his proper name, the only
way to account for this is to suppose a reminiscence of Gen. ii., iii., eto.
(p. 309).

348 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
two sources P and J ; but we must claim it also as an
illustration of the impossibility of separating these elements
in the narrative into two independent histories. The sub
stance of the story is allowed to be the same in both.., " In
chaps, vii, viii.," Kuenen says, " two almost parallel narratives
are combined into a single whole."1 Since the discovery
of the Babylonian account of the deluge, it is recognised
that both writers drew from very old sources,2 and, more
over, that it needs both J and P to yield the complete
parallel to the old Chaldean version. P, e.g., in Genesis,
gives the measurements of the ark, but lacks the sending
out of the birds — an essential feature in the Babylonian
story. J has the birds, and also the sacrifice of Noah,
which P, again, wants.8 In not a few passages the criteria
curiously intermingle, and the services of the redactor have
to be called freely into requisition to disentangle them.
E.g., in chaps, vii 7-10, 23, viii. 1, 2, where there is clearly
literary fusion of some kind.4 Above all, the parts of the
narrative fit into each other in a way that makes it im
possible to separate them. We have just seen how the
"corruption" of chap. vi. 11, 12 (P) implies the Jehovistic
story of the fall. From the sudden mention of Noah in
chap. vi. 8 the J story passes abruptly to chap. vii. 1 : " And
Jehovah said unto Noah., Come thou and all thy house into
the ark." But it is P who mentions Noah's sons, and
narrates the building of the ark (chap. vi. 6-22). The
Jehovistic clause, " And Jehovah shut him in " (chap. vii. 16),
stands isolated if taken from the P connection in which it
Btands. J, as stated, records Noah's sacrifice (chap. viii. 20),
but tells us nothing of his going out of the ark. That is
left for P (yers. 15-19).
It is easy, as before, to assert that all these lacking parts
1 Hex. p. 67. Cf. Wellhausen, p. 296.
2 On age, see below, Chap. XI. p. 404.
8 "Noah offers no sacrifice," says Carpenter. — Hex. i. p. 123. But this
is really a proof of the unity of the history, for the sacrifice — an essential
part of the Babylonian story, which P must have known — is found in J.
4 Kuenen says that in chaps, vii., viii. the narratives " are combined into
a single whole, and consequently the analysis does not always yield very
certain results. We find distinct traces of P in chaps, vii. 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13,
14, 15, 16a, 18-21 ; viii. 1, 2a, 2-5, 13-19. But the verses have been
worked over by some later hand. ... It is evident from these indications
that when the two texts were woven together a certain process of assimila
tion took place." — Hex. p. 67.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 349
of J and P were originally present, but were omitted by
the redactor, but it is impossible to prove it, and the
hypothesis is superfluous, because the missing parts are
there in the other narrative. Besides, what in that case
becomes of the "completeness" of the P narrative? If
" omission " is postulated to the extent required, the two
narratives become simply duphcates, and the ground for
the assertion that P "knows nothing" of this or that is
destroyed. If there has been replacement of parts, as
here and there is not impossible, it may be more simply
conceived as the result of one writer collaborating with
another, or working upon, and in parts re-writing, the
materials furnished him by another, in view of a plan, and
with a common aim.
Against this view of the unity of the narrative, it is
customary to urge the repetitions and alleged inconsistencies
of the several parts. On this it may suffice at present to
observe that the P writer does not shun repetitions, even of
his own statements, where these serve his purpose, — they
are in fact a mark of his style,1 — and that at least the
greater number of the inconsistencies arise from the
very evil of the hypothesis we are criticising — the
pitting of one part of the narrative against another as if
each was complete in itself.2 The most plausible example
in the present case is the alleged discrepancy as to the
duration of the flood. J's numbers, it is said, yield a much
shorter duration for the flood (40 + 21 = 61 days) than the
year and eleven days assigned to it by P.3 It is not
explained how P, with the J narrative before him, should
gratuitously invent numbers hopelessly at variance with
1 The same applies to J, though not to so great an extent. P repeats
freely where emphasis is wanted, where he recapitulates, where he com
mences a new section, etc. E.g., the birth of Noah's sons and their names
are several times repeated (chaps, v. 32, vi. 10, ix. 19, 20, x. 1). The
corruption of the earth is thrice affirmed in chap. vi. 11, 12 ; the entrance
into the ark is thrice mentioned in one section (chap. vii. 13, 15, 16), etc.
J repeats the "repenting " of Jehovah (chap. vi. 6, 7).
2 Kg., it is not a real contradiction if in one place (Gen. vi. 19, 20) the
general rule is laid down that the animals shall enter in pairs ("male and
female "), and in another (chap. vii. 2, 3) that clean beasts and fowls shall
go in by sevens (also " male and female "). Cf. chap. vii. 8, 9, 14. Both
statements may have been found in the old sources.
3 Cf. Dillmann, Driver, etc. Delitzsch concedes the discrepancy, un
necessarily, as we think. The unity of the narrative is upheld by Kohler,
Bib. Geschichte, i. pp. 58-59.

350 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
his authority and with the common tradition. But if the
narrative be taken as a whole there need be no discrepancy.
P's longer period is of itself more in keeping with the
magnitude of the catastrophe, even as described by J ; and
the assumption of the critics that J meant to confine the
actual flood within forty days can be shown by the text
itself to be unwarrantable. For (1) forty days is expressly
given by J as the period when " the rain was upon the
earth," i.e., when the cataclysm was in process (chap. vii.
12, 17); and (2) is separated from a second forty days
(chap. viii. 6) by the mention of an interval of gradual sub
sidence of the waters — " the waters returned from off the
earth continually " (chap. viii. 2, 3 ; also J) — which P in the
same verse dates at one hundred and fifty days. J's second
forty days, therefore, with the three weeks spent in sending
out the birds, equate with P's interval of two months
between chap. viii. 5 and chap. viii. 13, which covers the
same period, and the discrepancy disappears.1
In further illustration of the divisive methods employed
in this part of the history, it may be mentioned that
Wellhausen, Kuenen, Budde, Gunkel, etc., distinguish a
J1 and J2, and suppose that J1 (cf. Gen. iv. 16-24) had
no knowledge of a flood, which, therefore, it is held, does
not belong to the oldest tradition ; neither does Gen. xi.
1-9 look back, it is said, to a flood.2 It is even contended
that in Gen. ix. 18-27 the names of the three sons of Noah
must have been originally Shem, Japheth, and Canaan —
this on the ground that in ver. 25 the curse is pronounced
on Canaan 8 — a notion which, in its direct defiance of the
text, Delitzsch justly cites as " a specimen of what
emulation in the art of severing can accomplish."4
1 The critics are not agreed whether J has two periods of forty days, or
only one ; and differ, besides, in many details of the analysis. Kautzsch and
Sooin, Budde, etc., even give chap. vii. 17a — "the flood was forty days upon
the earth " — to P, but strike out the forty days. Thus discrepancies are
made. 2Cf. in reply Konig, Einleit. pp. 198-99. If Gen. ix. 18, 19 is
allowed to J1, as by Addis, etc., then the overspreading of the earth from
the sons of Noah is directly affirmed. Others give these verses to P.
8 Kautzsch says positively : " At Gen. ix. 20 ff. the sons of Noah, who
still dwell with him in one tent, are called in the original text Shem,
Japheth, and Canaan."— Lit. of 0. T., p. 88. The " original text " states the
precise contrary (vers. 18, 22), only the olauses naming Ham are expunged
as interpolations. Dillmann, Delitzsch, Konig, etc., reject the theory.
* Genesis, i. p. 291.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 351
(3) The critics have admittedly difficulty in dividing
up the table of nations in Gen. x. " Such being the relation
of the two documents," comments Kuenen, "it is easy to
understand that chap. x. (always excepting vers. 8-12) has
been included in P by some critics, and excluded from it
by others." 1 Tuch, Hupfeld, and Kayser gave the chapter
to J; Noldeke, with most critics of his time, to P (ex
cepting vers. 8-11) ; most critics now divide it between
J and P. But the J part, as usual, begins abruptly at
ver. 8 ; has no heading for the descendants of Ham ; omits
those of Japheth altogether ; and, on the other hand, alone
gives the descendants of Mizraim and Canaan, previously
mentioned by P (ver. 6). The entire table is needed to
restore the unity. An incidental proof of the unity is the
fact that it is constructed on the principle of seventy
names. (4) We pass to the history of the patriarchs, some
points in which have already been touched on. The
different parts of this history are again found to be in
separably connected textually. Difficulties begin with the
life of Abraham. After many variations of opinion, the
critics have settled down to give Gen. xi. 28-30 to J, and
ver. 27, 31, and 32 to P ; beyond this only chaps, xii. 4b, 5,
and xiii. 6, 116, 12 are assigned to P in chaps, xii., xiii.
But this yields some remarkable results. In chap. xi. 28,
the J story begins quite abruptly, without telling us who
Terah, Haran, Abram, and Nahor are ; i.e., it needs ver. 27
for its explanation. The residence of the family is placed
by J in Ur of the Chaldees (elsewhere given as a P mark),
and nothing is related of the migration to Haran (cf. P,
vers. 31, 32). Yet this migration is apparently assumed
in the call to Abraham in Gen. xii l.2 In ver. 6, Abraham
is said to have "passed through the land into the place
of Sichem," but we are not told what land. It is P alone
who tells of his departure from Haran, and coining to the
land of Canaan (ver. 46, 5). But this very fragment in
P assumes the departure from Haran as a thing known
(ver. 46), and so needs the first part of the verse, given to
J. In other words, the story, as it stands, is a unity;
divided, its connection is destroyed.
Gen. xiv.— the Chedorlaomer expedition— is, it is well
1 Hex. p. 67. a See above, Chap. IV. p. 108.

352 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
known, a hterary crux ; so unlike is it to P, yet so many
P marks are found in it.1 As P is made post-exilian, our
critics are under the necessity of putting this chapter still
later.2 On the very different verdict to which archaeology
points, we shall speak in next chapter.3 In the Hagar
episode, chap, xvi., instructive examples of critical division
are furnished. The first half of ver. 1, together with ver. 3,
is given to P ; then the J part begins without explanation —
" And she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was
Hagar." The promise of Ishmael is given in J (ver. 11);
it is left for P to record his birth (vers. 16, 17).4 It is the
"dry pedant" P who relates Abraham's touching inter
cession for Ishmael (chap. xvii. 18) ; afterwards, however,
several chapters later, J, who was silent on the birth, suddenly
introduces Ishmael as a grown lad, mocking Isaac (chap. xxi.
9). In chaps, xviii. to xx. the solitary indication of P is the
isolated verse, chap. xix. 29, which presupposes the destruction
of the cities of the plain — intelligible, perhaps, if regarded
as a recapitulatory statement, intended to introduce the
succeeding narrative, but utterly superfluous as the in
sertion of a redactor.6 Chap. xxi. 1-5 is again a fine specimen
of critical dissection, The second half of ver. 1 is given" to
P, despite the fact that Jehovah occurs in it (similarly in
chap. xvii. 1) ; ver. 2 is hkewise split between J and P.
P's narrative, as stated earlier, after the introduction
'"Gen. xiv. is admitted on every hand," says Carpenter, "to show
many peculiarities. . . . The margins show affinities of style with both
J and P. . . . These phenomena would point to a writer acquainted with
the linguistic usage of both J and P." — Hex. i. pp. 155-56. Addis writes :
" The unknown author must have read the Pentateuch much as we have it.
His language, as shown above, betrays the influence of P, while his facts
are partly dTawn from the Jahvist. He must have belonged to Judah, for
he exalts the sanctuary of Jerusalem, and its sacred right to tithes" I —
Hex. ii. p. 212. Cf. Kuenen, Hex. p. 324.
2 Professor Bennett says "the narrative may be partly based on information
derived from Babylon, possibly by Jews of the Captivity." — Genesis, p. 19.
• See below, pp. 410 ff. The revolutionary effects of admitting an early
date of composition for this chapter are evident from the above.
4 See above, p. 344.
5 Colenso, arguing against Kuenen, says: "Is it credible that after the
long circumstantial account of Jehovah's visit to Abraham, and conversation
with him, and of Lot's being rescued out of Sodom in chap, xviii. 1-xix. 28,
a later writer would think it necessary to insert the perfectly superfluous
statement in chap. xix. 29 ?" — Pent. Pt. vi. App. p. 121. Carpenter says:
"When the 'overthrow' is mentioned in chap. xix. 29, it is apparently
assumed that its cause is known." — Hex. i. p. 123. But why then men
tion it t

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 353
of the E writer, becomes largely a blank. Apart from Gen.
xxiii. and later references to the same (chaps, xlix. 29 ff.,
1. 12, 13) ;a a few other incidents (chaps, xxvii. 46-xxviii
9; xxxv. 9-15; cf. xlvii. 6-11; xlviii 3-7); and some
genealogies and lists, it is absolutely confined, assuming
that even they belong to it, to such disconnected verses,
or parts of verses, as those formerly enumerated — "And
Isaac was threescore years when she bare them " (chap. xxv.
266), Zilpah and Bilhah given as handmaids (chap. xxix. 24,
29), " And all his goods that he had gotten, the cattle of
his getting," etc. (chap. xxxi. 18), "And Joseph was thirty
years old when he stood before Pharaoh" (chap, xii 46).
Chap, xxxiv. — the story of Dinah — is an exception, for here
a P narrative is blended with a JE one, but so intimately,
and with such peculiarities of style, that the critics do
not well know what to make of it, and are at sixes and
sevens in their analysis.2 A similar perplexity attaches
to the list of those descending to Egypt in chaps, xlvi 8-27.
" The general evidence," we are told, " points to a writer
familiar with P, but also acquainted with other documents
besides."8 Wellhausen, the Oxford analysts, and others,
accordingly, treat the P parts of both chaps, xxxiv. and
xlvi 8-27, as belonging to a later and secondary stratum.
Other phenomena in Genesis, e.g., the fact that it is P
alone who records the deaths of the patriarchs, have already
been noticed.
It is needless to do more than draw attention to the
results which thus far stand out clear from our review.
They are: (1) that the book, as we have it, is a unity; (2)
that the unity is destroyed by breaking it up into separately
existing JE and P documents; (3) that the unity is too
close to be the work of a redactor piecing together such
separate documents; (4) that to secure the unity we do
not need to go beyond the book we have, i.e., what P lacks,
1 Colenso, however, gives chap. 1. 12 to J, and bases an argument on it
(Pent. Pt. vi., App. p. 122).
2 The Oxford writers say of this chapter : "The linguistic affinities of
the first story clearly connects it with J. . . . Equally clearly the various
marks in the second story bring it within the scope of P. But it is so
different in kind from P's other narratives of the patriarchal age, as to make
it highly improbable that it ever belonged to the Toledhoth-hook ... as
tbe interlacing is very close the assignment of some passages must be
doubtful."— Hex. ii. pp. 52-53.
8 Oxford Hex. ii. p. 72 : on Gen. xlvi. 8 ff. see below, pp. 366 ff.
¦a

354 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
J supplies, and vice versa. In brief, whatever the number
of pens employed, the phenomena would seem to point, not
to late irresponsible redaction, but to singleness of plan, and
co-operation of effort, in the original production.
2. When we pass from the patriarchal to the Mosaic
period, though P no longer possesses the marked character
of " framework " which it had in the Book of Genesis, but
appears rather as co-ordinate with JE, and even, in the
legislative parts, as an inserted content, we discover that the
union of narratives is not less close than in the earher book,
and the impossibility of separating them into independent
documents equally great.
(1) Not much is given to P in Exodus before chap, vi.,
but what httle is given is bound up inseparably with its
JE context. From the mention, e.g., of the increase and
prosperity of the Israehtes in Egypt (chap, i 7), P passes
abruptly to their bondage (vers. 13, 14), and the intervening
verses are required to give the explanation. The language
used in chap. ii. 23-25 (P)— " cry," " heard," " saw," " knew "
(in Heb.) — has its verbal counterpart in chap. iii. 7 (J).1 In
chap. vi. 2, the narrative of the revelation of the name
begins with the words, " And God spake unto Moses " ; but
nothing has yet been said in P of either Moses or Aaron.2
The information necessary is supplied by JE. Chap. vi. itself
presents many peculiarities, with traces of J, which are
a perplexity to the critics.8 Vers. 13-20 of this chapter,
embracing the genealogy, are roundly declared to be a
" later amalgam," 4 or probably " an insertion by a very late
hand."6 Then follow in chaps, vii-xii, the narratives of
1 Colenso, accordingly, with his view of the earlier date of the Elohist,
sees in chap. iii. 7 (and in Deut. xxvi. 7) a " plain allusion " to chap. ii. 23-
25. It should be noticed also that chap. ii. 24 alludes to God's covenant
with Isaac, mentioned only by J (Gen. xxvi. 2-5, 24).
2 To obviate this difficulty many ingenious methods are employed
(assumed omissions, transpositions, etc.), which in other hands would be
described as "harmonistic expedients."
• Cf. Oxford Hexateuch and Addis, in loc
4 Oxford Hex. ii. p. 87.
8 Addis, Hex. ii. p. 236 ; so Kuenen. Van Hoonacker points out an
interesting harmony between this table and the JE history. In ver. 23
Nadab and Abihu are mentioned as the two eldest sons of Aaron. The
names recur in Ex. xxiv. 9 (J E). Further, P relates how these two were
destroyed for the sin of offering strange fire (Lev. x. 1 ff.). In perfect
harmony with this the line of Aaron is viewed in the historical books as
continued in descent from the remaining sons, Eleazar and Ithamar (ver.
23), and Nadab and Abihu are no more heard of. — Le Sacerdoce, pp. 138-39.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 355
the plagues, about which many difficulties are raised. Not
reckoning the death of the firstborn, P, it is said, knows only
of four of the plagues ; JE only of seven. Other differences
are pointed out. In P the miracles are wrought by Aaron
and his rod ; in JE, either without human instrumentality
(J), or by the agency of Moses and his rod (E).1 It may readily
be shown, however, that these differences are greatly over
driven, where they do not turn round into a new proof of
the unity of the narrative. It is the case, as stated, that
JE has seven of the plagues, or, including the firstborn, eight ;
while P has only two peculiar to himself (lice and boils).
But it results from the new form of the critical hypothesis
that P cannot have been ignorant of those recorded in JE ;
therefore, cannot have intended to ignore or contradict
them.2 Accordingly, where the narratives touch, they are
closely interwoven. In the plague of frogs, for instance, J
records the threatening (chap. viii. i-4), but P narrates the
execution of the threat (vers. 5-7). Without P this part of
the story would be a blank. Conversely, J alone narrates
the judgment on the firstborn (chap, xii 29, 30), which is
announced in the passover law of P (ver. 12), but is not
described by P. This further curious result follows from
the critical partition, that, while in P Aaron is appointed to
be a prophet to Moses, and to speak for him to Pharaoh
(chap. vii. 1, 2), in none of the P sections does either Moses
or Aaron ever utter a word. All the speaking is done in
JE. As respects the mode of working the miracles, it is
not the case that P invariably represents Aaron as perform
ing the wonders with his rod ; in the plague of boils (one
peculiar to P), Moses is the agent (chap. ix. 10), and in the
destruction of the firstborn Jehovah Himself executes the
judgment (chap. xii. 12). But in JE also, even where the
fact is not expressly stated (as in P), we are entitled to
assume that the same rule applies to the acting as to the
speaking, viz., that Aaron is regarded as the agent of
Moses.8 This, indeed, is the rule laid down in JE itself.
1 This again is made a basis of distinction as between J and E, and fresh
inconsistencies are evolved.
2 On the plagues, cf. Kohler, Bib. Gesch. i. pp. 185-86.
8 It is to be observed that in Ex. iv. 2-5 (JE) Moses receives the sign of
the rod changed into a serpent to be, with other wonders, displayed before
Pharaoh (vers. 17, 21) ; but in chap. vii. 8 ff. (P), Aaron performs the wonder

356 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
Thus in chap. iv. 30 (J) we read : " Aaron spake all the words
which Jehovah had spoken unto Moses, and did the signs
in the sight of the people " ; and in chap, xi 10 (E) : " And
Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh."
The two are regularly conjoined throughout the history.1
(2) The narratives of the wilderness journeyings show
even closer interweaving than those of the Exodus ; but we
shall content ourselves with two typical instances from the
Book of Numbers, viz., the mission of the spies (chaps, xhi,
xiv.), and the rebellion of Korah (chap. xvi). These have
already been before us in connection with Deuteronomy ; 2
it is desirable now to look at them from the point of view
of P. There are evidences, we think, of distinct sources in
these narratives, but the histories, as we have them, are
nevertheless firmly-compacted and inseparable wholes.
First, as respects the mission of the spies, it is admitted
that the narratives we have to deal with are substantially
parallel, but it is held, as before seen, that they conflict in
several important particulars. Thus P makes the spies
traverse the whole land, in JE they go only as far as
Eshcol, near Hebron ; P includes Joshua with Caleb among
the spies, JE knows only of Caleb ; P makes the spies bring
up an evil report of the country, but says nothing of the
inhabitants, while in JE the explorers describe the land as
fruitful, but give terrifying accounts of the inhabitants.
But now, to make out these discrepancies, which would
hardly occur to the reader of the story as it stands, the
narrative has first of all to be torn to shreds.8 The JE
contribution, e.g., begins in the middle of a verse: "And
said unto them, Get you up this way by the South " (chap.
xhi. 176); its commencement is supposed to be lost. But
the proper commencement is there in P, with his list of the
spies, if we will only accept it. Again, the second half of
ver. 21 is singled out,4 and given to P, with the result that
JE reads: "So they went up, and they went up by the
South" (vers. 21a, 22). But this now is an obvious
for Moses. So the threat of the frogs (J) is executed through Aaron (P) in
c ap. viii.
* Chs. v. 1, 4, 20 ; viii. 5, 12, 25 ; ix. 27 ; x. 3, 8, 16, etc.
2 See above, pp. 279 ff.
8 We follow the analysis of the Oxford Hexateuch, which agrees in most
points with that of Dillmann, Wellhausen, etc.
4 Or the whole verse according to others.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 357
" doublet," and forms the basis of a new division between
J and E (but what of the sense of the redactor, who so
united them ?). Similarly, the first half of ver. 26 is given
to Pf and the second half to JE, though the connection is
close, and the second half has a marked P phrase.1 The
way is now clear for declaring that JE knows nothing of a
searching of the whole land. Yet it seems very evident to
the unprejudiced reader that, both in the commission to the
searchers (vers. 17-20), and in the report they bring (vers.
27-29), in JE itself, an exploration of the whole country is
implied. We go on to chap, xiv., the first verse in which is
divided up among three writers : " And all the congregation
lifted up their voice " (P), " and cried " (E),2 " and the people
wept that night " (J). In P, Addis tells us, " no mention
is made of the inhabitants, who are indeed treated as
non-existent "(!) 8 — as if this absurdity was not of itself
sufficient to condemn his scheme. But this, like P's ignor
ance of the fruitfulness of the land, disproved by Caleb's
words in ver. 7, is only made out by separating vers. 8, 9
from their close connection with ver. 7 — reserving for P
only the words in the middle : " only rebel not ye against
Jehovah." Even the allegation that JE knows nothing of
Joshua as one of the spies, seems, apart from its connection
with the list in chap. xhi. 1-6, to break down on examination.
Most critics are now disposed to assign chap. xiv. 30-33 to J,
or a related writer,4 and in it Caleb and Joshua are united.
It happens also that we have yet another rehearsal of this
mission in Num. xxxii. 7 ff. — a section admittedly based on
JE;6 and there, too, the names occur in like connection
1 "Unto all the congregation" — handed over to a redactor.
2 The second verb changes to masc. plur. "they cried," from the fern.
sing, of first clause. But thoughts are not always rigidly bound to
grammar. 8 Hex. ii. p. 403.
4 Cf. Dillmann (Num.~Jos. pp. 69, 78 ; J in contradistinction from E) ;
Wellhausen (Compos, p. 102) ; Oettli, Kittel, etc. Addis adopts this view
in his vol. ii. p. 403 — "probably the Jahvist."
" Cf. Dillmann, pp. 193 ff. Wellhausen (Comp. pp. 113 ff. ) assigns vers.
1-15 to a source which takes a "middle position between J and Q (=P),"
and is most nearly related to the Deuteronomist. Its narrative is given as
parallel to JE. Dillmann, Kittel, and others admit that J (not E) reckoned
Joshua among the spies. Cf. also Kohler, Bib. Geseh. i. p. 306. This
Numbers xxxii. is one of the most disconcerting chapters for the divisive
hypothesis. ' ' All attempts hitherto at division of sources, " says Dillmann,
"go widely asunder " (p. 193).

358 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
and order (ver. 12). The critics, clearly, have still a good
deal to do before they break up the unity of this story.
The Korah Episode (chap, xvi.), to which we next turn,
is perhaps a yet more signal example of the perplexities
in which the divisive hypothesis of the critics, when
carried out to its issues, involves itself. We start with
the assertion — for which there is some basis — that there
are traces in. the narrative of two movements — one, headed
by Korah, which aimed at securing for the Levites the
rights of the priesthood (vers. 4-11) ; and the other, headed
by Dathan and Abiram, a revolt of the general congregation
(laity) against the authority of Moses and Aaron (vers.
13-14). The two movements, supposing them to have
existed, were no doubt blended in fact, as they now are
in the narrative — hence the inextricable difficulties which
attend the attempt to make two independent histories out
of them.1 In the first place, the narrative of P itself
presents perplexities from this point of view; for with
Korah are united, in vers. 2, 3, as many as two hundred and
fifty princes of the congregation, "men of renown," who
evidently represent the laity in their uprising against
Moses and Aaron ; 2 i.e., are in the same cause as Dathan
and Abiram.3 Wellhausen, the Oxford critics, and many
more, therefore, find it necessary to resolve this part of the
P history into two, and even to deny that, in the original
form of the story, Korah was a Levite at all. Dillmann
and others defend the unity of P in this place; while
Kuenen, like Graf earher,4 sees in the Levitical parts
rather the late work of a redactor.6 But the JE narrative
1 Kohler says : " There are no sufficient grounds for the contention that
in the narrative as it lies before us, two quite distinct histories — the history
of an uprising of the Levite Korah against the exclusive priesthood of Aaron,
and the history of a revolt of the Reubenites, Dathan and Abiram against
the supremacy of Moses over Israel — have been blended together."— Bib.
Geseh. p. 307.
2 This, e.g., is one of the "contradictions'- adduced by McFadyen, in
his Messages of the Historians, p. 7.
8 Dathan and Abiram throughout the story decline to face Moses and
Aaron (vers. 12 ff.). Their absence at the interview, vers. 3 ff., need,
therefore, occasion no surprise. ..
4 Graf seems to admit that in the original form of the story Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram were united. — Geschicht. Bilcher, p. 89.
4 From the Graf-Wellhausen standpoint it is of course impossible to
admit that the Korah episode had any foundation in fact, or was earlier
than the exile. Hence the theory, referred to in last chapter, that it
reflects the conflicts of Ezekiel's degraded priests (Levites) for restoration

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 359
is equally recalcitrant, for it, in turn, makes it clear that a
religious claim entered as well into the popular movement
of Dathan and Abiram. As the Oxford Hexateuch has it :
'' Dathan and Abiram defy the authority of Moses on the
ground that he has failed to fulfil his promise, and he
replies by entreating Yahweh to pay no attention to their
offering. The basis of ver. 15 is clearly some religious
act, culminating in sacrifice, and having affinity rather
with Korah's protest than with the rebelhon of Dathan
and Abiram."1 It is necessary, accordingly, to find two
narratives here also, as well as in P, and still further
complications are involved in working the whole into shape.
The simplest solution is that the error hes in the original
assumption of independent narratives, and that probably
the events took place as they are actually described.2
IV. Alleged Inconsistencies and Historical
Inceedibilities of the Peiestly Writing
Frequent references have been made in the course of
these discussions to the inconsistencies, contradictions,
duplicate narratives, incredibilities, and the like, which are
said to prove that P is a distinct writing from JE, late in
origin, and historically untrustworthy. If our contention
is correct, it would be truer to say that it is the assumption
that the documents in question are independent, and each
complete in itself, which gives rise to most of the appear
ances of inconsistency and contradiction.
1. It was before indicated that only thus can it be made
to their full priestly dignity. As there pointed out, these post-Ezekiel
conflicts of a party of degraded priests have no foundation in history ; are,
in fact, a pure creation of the imagination.
1 Hex. ii. p. 212.
2 As a further illustration of the difficulties involved in the divisive
hypothesis, we might have referred to the critical treatment of the story
of the bringing of the water from the rock at Meribah (Num. xx. 1 ff.).
Of this story, Addis says : " Here we have one of the few (?) instances
in which the documents of the ' Oldest Book of Hebrew History ' have been
inextricably entangled, not, as is often the case, with each other, but with
the narrative of the 'Priestly Writer.'" — Hex. i. p. 169. It is pointed out
that here the writer departs from his usual practice of idealising his heroes,
in admitting that Moses and Aaron were guilty of great sin. The reason
given is an exoellent example of the method. "He does so," we are told,
" because the fact that Moses and Aaron did not enter the promised land
was too fixed and conspicuous in tradition to be gainsaid, and it had to be
accounted for." — Hex. ii. p. 419.

360 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
out, e.g., that P " knows nothing " of a fall, or of sacrifices
of the patriarchs,1 or of incidents derogatory to the
patriarchs — his narrative being, as Kuenen says, one
" from which every trace of hostility between Abraham and
Lot, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his
brothers, has been carefully removed." 2 Is it credible, on
the principles of the critical hypothesis itself, that P.with
the JE history in his hands, and founding upon it, should
have supposed bis readers unacquainted with the fact that
the patriarchs built altars and offered sacrifices, or should
have intended to " make sacrifices to the deity begin with the
Mosaic age " ? 8 One might as well argue that J, on his part,
" knows nothing " of the deaths of the patriarchs ! Again,
if P gives only a "thread" — "the mere links and articu
lations " — of a narrative, and records practically nothing of
the lives of Isaac and Joseph, where is the room for the
assertion that he "carefully removes" this, or "avoids"
that ? Especially when the knowledge of the full patriarchal
history is throughout presupposed.4 If P, e.g., gives us no
life of Joseph at all, how can it be alleged that he has
removed " every trace of hostility between Joseph and his
brothers " ? 6 Can inferences be drawn from that which
does not exist ? On the other hand, as we have sought
to show in the narratives of the flood, of the plagues in
Egypt, of the spies, of the rebellion of Korah, when the
narratives are taken in their completeness, nine-tenths of
the allegations of inconsistency and contradiction fall of
their own accord.
1 See above, p. 156 ; cf. Kautzsch, Lit. of 0.2*., p. 110 ; Driver, Genesis,
p. xxii, etc.
2 Hex. p. 301. Carpenter says : " The extent to which the figures of
the primeval history were already surrounded, in view of the Priests' Writ
ing, with a kind of saintly aureole, is seen from the obviously intentional
omission of all the traits which seem to lower the dignity of the patriarchs."
— Hex. i. p. 301. Probably, on the same principle, P intends throwing an
"aureole' round Sodom and Gomorrah, since, as Carpenter says : "Even
when Lot settles in the cities of the 'circle,' the writer v refrains from
commenting on their characters" (p. 123).
8 Kuenen, Hex. p. 301. Cf. Colenso in reply to Kuenen, quoted above,
p. 156. 4 Carpenter says : " Again and again does the brevity of the narrative
imply that the author relies on the previous acquaintance of his readers
with the facts." — Hex. i. p. 123 : cf. above, pp. 344 ff.
1 Kuenen, as above. It was shown earlier that it is P alone who records
the sin of Moses and Aaron that excluded them from Canaan (cf. above, p.
276).

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 361
2. It is not greatly different with alleged duplicate
narratives, some of which, as the stories of the creation and
the flood, and the denial of their wives by the patriarchs, have
already been dealt with. It was found earlier that several
of the alleged duplicates fall within the limits of the same
document, as the denials of their wives by Abraham and Isaac
in J (Gen. xii. ; xxvi 6 ff.), and two Korah stories, according
to Wellhausen and others, in P (Num. xvi. 2 ff), and may
therefore reasonably be supposed to have belonged to the
original tradition. By far the greater number of instances
we should deny to be " duphcates " in the proper sense at
all — i.e., divergent traditions of the same incidents. The
redactor (not to say the original authors) can hardly have
regarded them as such, or he would have omitted one, or
sought to combine them in his usual harmonistic way.
We said before, in speaking of, JE, that there was no good
reason, as it appeared to us, for identifying the flight of
Hagar, in Gen. xvi. (J), with her expulsion by Sarah in
chap. xxi. (E), or even Abraham's denials of bis wife at
Egypt (chap, xii J) and at Gerar (Gen. xx. E).1 So there is
no good reason in the nature of the case for identifying
the two revelations at Bethel — one before Jacob's going to
Paddan-Aram (Gen. xxviii. 10 ff. JE), the other on his
return (chap. xxxv. 9 ff. P) ; or the two revelations to Moses
— one at the burning bush in Midian (Ex. iii. 1 ff. JE), the
other in Egypt (chap. vi. 2 ff. P), etc. On the contrary, in
most of these narratives there are plain indications that the
incidents are distinct, and that the later implies the earlier.
In Gen. xxi, e.g., Ishmael is already born, and old enough
to "mock" Isaac; but only in Gen. xvi. 15, 16 (P) is his
birth narrated. The second vision in Bethel is connected
with the first by the word " again " 2 (Gen. xxxv. 9), and is
led up to by the revelations in chaps, xxxi. 13, xxxv 1 (E),
summoning Jacob back from Paddan-Aram, and recalling
him to Bethel — histories admittedly known to P. Ex. vi.
2 ff. introduces Moses and Aaron abruptly, and the earher
JE history is imphed, explaining who Moses was, and how
he came to be connected with the children of Israel and
1 See above, pp. 236 ff.
2 "The editor, "say the Oxford critics, " has inserted the word ' again.
 Sex. ii. p. 55. But why ? Since P admittedly knew the earlier stories,
what motive could he have for ignoring them, and inventing a new one in
a different connection ?

362 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
with Pharaoh in Egypt1 — a history again presumed, on
the newer theory, to be known to P.2 Indeed, on the
"omission" or "mutual mutilation" hypothesis of the
critics, what right have we to suppose that in all these
cases both stories were not found in the documents con
cerned, and that, as in so many other instances of parallel
narratives, the suppression of one is not due to the redactor ?
3. The " historical incredibilities " freely imputed to the
Priestly Writing, as to other parts of the narrative of the
Pentateuch, can only here be briefly touched on, though
they form the real ground of much of the criticism directed
against that work.8 There is, in truth, in this department,
extremely little — hardly anything — with which those who
have had to do with the subject have not been famihar since
the days of the Deistical controversy, or which was not
pressed home with skill and cogency by the earlier sceptical
writers of last century, as Von Bohlen, etc. Only in those
days it was not called " believing criticism " of the Bible, but
destructive attack upon it ! In modern times the writer
chiefly relied on as having irretrievably shattered the
historical credibility of the narratives in the Pentateuch —
especially those proceeding from the Priestly Writer — is
Bishop Colenso. The arguments of this authority are taken
over practically en bloc by modern critical scholars, and
treated as irrefragable demonstrations that the stories in
Genesis, but particularly those of the Mosaic period, are
throughout utterly unhistorical.4 On this subject, while we
1 Of. Kohler, Bib. Geseh. i. pp. 182-83.
2 It is in the light of such considerations that we see how revolutionary
for the critical theory is the admission that P knew, and supposed his
readers to know, these earlier histories. To take one other example from
Genesis. "The promise of a son to Sarah," says Dr. Driver, "is twice
described." — Genesis, p. iii. But how is the matter mended if the author
of chap. xvii. knew of chap, xviii. t The promises are really distinct — one to
Abraham, the other in hearing of Sarah.
8 Thus Kuenen : ' ' The representations in the later books of the Pentateuch
simply defy the conditions of space and time to which every event is subject,
and by which, therefore, every narrative may be tested. The Exodus, the
wandering, the passage of the Jordan, and the settlement in Canaan, as they
are described in the Hexateuch, simply could not have happened." — Hex.
p. 43. 4 ' ' With one single exception, " says Kuenen, ' ' the twenty chapters of his
book (Pt. i.) are devoted to an absolutely pulverising criticism of the data of
the Grundschrift." He speaks of the difficulties as "massed together and
set forth by him with imperturbable sangfroid and relentless thoroughness. "
— Hex. Introd. pp. xiv-xvii, p. 45. Wellhausen says : " Colenso is properly

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 363
have no interest in arguing for a supernatural accuracy in
chronological or historical matters in the Biblical narratives
beyond what the soundness of his information enabled the
Bacred writer to attain, yet, as having lived through the
Colenso storm, and read pretty fully into the literature
it called forth, we desire to dissociate ourselves entirely
from these extravagant estimates of the success of the
Bishop's destructive work. Colenso's courage, honesty, and
loyalty to truth, as he understood it, we shall not seek
to dispute. But his work lacked from the commencement
the first condition of success, — insight into the meaning,
and sympathy with the spirit, of the books he was working
with. The distinction between a supernatural and a purely
natural history was one to which he allowed no weight — did
not seem able even to appreciate; many real difficulties
he emphasised, which others, perhaps, had passed over too
lightly, but many more were the creation of a mind working
in narrow arithmetical grooves, and bent on applying to a
historical writing the canons of a rigorous literalism, which
would be more justly described as "intolerable pedantry"
than the work of the Priestly Writer to which it was
applied. His book was keenly scrutinised, and manifoldly
replied to, at the time ; and those are widely mistaken who,
on the strength of the laudations of the critics, persuade
themselves that the victory waB altogether his. We shall
best show this by a rapid glance at his criticism.
(1) It would be unpardonable to resuscitate — were it not
that they must be presumed to belong to those demonstra
tions of contradiction of the "universal laws of time and
space" which Kuenen speaks of — the extraordinary com
putations by which Bishop Colenso proves to his satisfaction
that "all the congregation" of Israel could not assemble
at the door of the tabernacle, or that the Levitical laws could
not be observed in their entirety in the wilderness. Who
that has read his book will ever forget his wonderful calcula
tions to show that, even excepting ex gratia such as may
have been detained by sickness or other necessary causes,
"the whole congregation" of nearly 2,000,000, could not
entitled to the credit of having first torn the web asunder." — Hist, of Israel,
p. 347. Addis says: "One has only to read the first two volumes of
Colenso to see what absurdities are involved if we take the Pentateuch as it
stands, and treat it as one book. There is no end to the chronological
monstrosities which meet us at every turn." — Hex. i. p. 1.

364 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
have been squeezed into the court of the tabernacle, and,
standing as closely as possible, in rows of nine, not merely
at the door, but (another concession) at the end of the
tabernacle, would have reached — the men alone for nearly
20 miles, all the people for nearly 60 miles! Or his
reasoning that the Levitical law required the officiating
priest " to carry on his back on foot " the carcase of the
bullock of the sin-offering to " a clean place " without the
camp — on one reckoning a distance of about f of a mile, on
another reckoning about 6 miles ! Or his proof that the
three priests in the wilderness could not have offered — not
to say eaten — the 90,000 pigeons annually, or 88 per diem
apiece, required by the law for the 250 cases of child-birth
daily ! 1 Some least grain of common sense might be con
ceded to the Priestly Writer, who, whatever his faults,
certainly did not mean to palm off upon his readers such
crude absurdities as these. Most people will feel that the
force of his language is abundantly satisfied by large and
representative gatherings of the people at and around the
tabernacle on solemn occasions ; 2 and will remember that,
"according to the story," to use the Bishop's phrase, the
priests had a whole tribe of Levites to assist them in their
menial duties — though these, as formerly noticed,8 strangely
enough, from the critical point of view, never appear in the
laws in Leviticus. If the pigeons were not, as the Bishop
says they would not be, obtainable in any large numbers in
the wilderness, they would not be there to bring or eat;
but the objection overlooks that the sacrificial system had
specially in view the future settled habitation of the people
(cf. Num. xv. 2 ff), and that in point of fact, it is represented
as having been largely suspended during the years of
wandering.4 (2) No thoughtful reader will minimise the very real
difficulties inhering in the Biblical narratives of the Exodus
— the remarkable increase of the children of Israel in
1 Pent. Pt. i. See references and quotations in Note A on Bishop Colenso's
Numerical Objections.
2 Publicly-called meetings of "the inhabitants" of large towns or cities
are frequently held in halls of very moderate dimensions. Ecclesiasti
cally, the writer has been present at duly-summoned and formally-minuted
meetings of a Church Presbytery of several hundred members, for purposes
of ordination, where the members present were accommodated on a railed
platform of a few feet square. Colenso could prove it impossible.
8 See above, p. 304. 4 Josh. v. 5 ; cf. Amos v. 25.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 365
Egypt,1 the circumstances of the Exodus itself, the passage
of the Red Sea, the care of the people in the wilderness and
provision for them, etc. These facts, at the same time, are
precisely among the best attested in the history of Israel ;
and, in dealing with them, justice requires that we treat
them from the Bible's own point of view, as events altogether
exceptional in the history of that people, and, indeed, of
mankind, accomplished by divine help, and, as respects the
Exodus, under the highest exaltation of rehgious and
patriotic consciousness of which a nation is capable. Many
elements, also, which do not appear upon the surface of the
narrative, have to be taken into account, e.g., that the
patriarchs who went down to Egypt did so accompanied by
extensive households.2 Colenso, in the work referred to,
however, will admit none of these reheving considerations
(nor even the "households"), insists on bringing every
thing to the foot-rule of the most ordinary experience
— the birth-rate of London, e.g., or a lower rate,8 — eliminates
wholly the supernatural element, founds upon the Biblical
data where these suit his purpose, but rejects other state
ments which throw light upon the former ; very often by
his grotesque literalism creates difficulties which are not in
the Biblical narrative at all. Thus, e.g., he will have it that
"in one Bingle day, the order to start was communicated
suddenly, at midnight, to every single family of every town
and village, throughout a tract of country as large as
Hertfordshire, but ten times as thickly peopled"; that
," they then came in from all parts of the land of Goshen t&
Rameses, bringing with them the sick and infirm, the young
and the aged; further, that since receiving the summons,
they had sent out to gather in all their flocks and herds,
spread over so wide a district, and had driven them also to
Rameses ; and lastly, that having done all this, since they
1 It is undesirable, on the other hand, to exaggerate the difficulty. The
writer has personal knowledge of a family the heads of which celebrated
their golden wedding in 1880. In that 50 years the original couple had
multiplied to 69 (there were two deaths). If the reader will reckon the
result of a similar rate of increase for 300 or 400 years, the figures may
surprise him.
3 This is no doubt the uniform representation in Genesis, cf., e.g., Gen.
xiv. 14; xxvi. 13, 14; xxxii. 4, 5, 10, etc. Colenso clings to the literal
seventy souls.
8 He prefers to take his rate from the slow growth in the lifetimes of
Abraham and Isaac.

366 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
were roused at midnight, they were started again from
Rameses that very same day and marched on to Succoth,
not leaving a single sick or infirm person, a single woman
in child-birth, or even ' a single hoof ' behind them." " This
is undoubtedly," he avers, " what the story in the Book of
Exodus requires us to believe (Ex. xii. 31-41, 51)." x
" Incredibility," truly ! But the picture is a creation of the
objector's own imagination, of a piece with his persistence
(in which many modern critics support him) that the
passover is represented as taking place on the night of the
same day in which the first command to observe it was given.
Both objections fall together in view of the fact that the
text on which the above assertion is based: "I will pass
through the land of Egypt this night " (Ex. xii. 12),2 occurs in
a law which expressly ordains that the lamb of the passover
is to be chosen on the 10th day of the month, and kept
till the 14th (vers. 3, 6) ; which, therefore, must have been
given still earher in the month, perhaps near its beginning.
(3) We do not propose to re-thresh the hundred times
threshed straw of Colenso's long catalogue of "incredibilities"
— most of them retailed by others — but confine ourselves to
two examples, which perhaps will be admitted to be fairly
typical. The first is the very old difficulty about Hezron and
Hamul, the sons of Pharez, whose names are included in
the list of threescore and ten who went down with Jacob to
Egypt (Gen. xlvi). A simple reckoning shows that Pharez,
the father of this pair, cannot himself have been more than
three or four years old at the time of the descent;8 his
sons, therefore, must have been born, not in Canaan, but in
Egypt. Dr. Driver, like Bishop Colenso, finds here " a grave
chronological discrepancy between P and JE."4 Yet the
1 Pent. Pt. i. pp. 61-62. The passage is partly from E, partly from P.
2 In ver. 12 as in ver. 8, etc., the words " this night " refer to the night
spoken of, not to the night in which the words are spoken. The Oxford
Hexateuch translates "that night" (ii. p. 96).
8 Judah was about forty-three years old at the descent, and as his sons
Er and Onan had been married and were dead a year or two before the birth
of Pharez (Gen. xxxviii.), the latter cannot have been more than the age
stated at the descent.
4 Genesis, p. 365. On the contrary, the reference to Er and Onan in
ver. 12 is a clear allusion to the JE story in chap, xxxviii., as also is the
place given to Hezron and Hamul in the list. Why should P, who knew
the JE story, wantonly contradict it !

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 367
ordinary solution, viz., that Hezron and Hamul are
here introduced (Colenso failed to observe, in a separate
clause) as the legal representatives and substitutes of Er
and Onan, who are said to have died in the land of Canaan,1
seems not only perfectly admissible, but even required by
the peculiar construction of the passage. The story in Gen.
xxxviii, forbidding as it is, adequately explains the ground
of this substitution. On genealogies generally it is to be
remarked that they are commonly constructed on more or
less technical principles, and have to be construed in that
light. This table of seventy persons, e.g., is evidently one
of heads of families, and includes in its enumeration, not
only Jacob himself and his daughter Dinah, but Er and
Onan, who died in Canaan (represented by Hezron and
Hamul), and Joseph's two sons, who, though expressly
mentioned as born in the land of Egypt (ver. 20), are
embraced in "the souls that came with Jacob into
Egypt."2 Our second example is one usually regarded as among
the most formidable — the number of the (male) firstborn in
Israel as compared with the total number of males. The
firstborn males are given in Num. iii. 43 as 22,273 (a
number whose accuracy is checked by comparison with
that of the Levites). Assuming now the total number of
males to be 900,000, we have a proportion of one firstborn
to 42 males, which is interpreted to mean that " according
to the story of the Pentateuch every mother in Israel must
have had on the average 42 sons ! " 3 It may again occur
that the Priestly Writer, who had at least a genius for
manipulating and systematising figures, could hardly have
1 Reckoning Jacob, either Er and Onan, or Hezron and Hamul, must be
omitted to make the number 33 in ver. 15.
2Cf. Delitzsch, Genesis, i. pp. 337-40; Hengstenberg, Pent. ii. pp.
290 ff. Kuenen regards this list as a patchwork put together from Num.
xxvi. (Hex. p. 68) ; Bennett thinks it "may be an abstract of the chapters
in Chronicles" (I), and says "the 66 (in ver. 26) is a correction of an
editor" (Gen. pp. 378, 382). Dr. Driver also brackets "Jacob and his
sons" (ver. 8), and the " threescore-and-six " of ver. 26, and all ver. 27,
but "threescore and ten" as additions to the original text (Genesis, p. 368).
There is no authority for any of these assertions or changes, which create
difficulties, and remove none. Even in Dr. Driver's revised text, Er and
Onan, who never were in Egypt, and Joseph's two sons, who never were in
Canaan, are needed to make up the 70 "that came down with Jacob to
Egypt "' (vers. 26-27).
8 Pent., People's edit. p. 49.

368 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
been unaware of a discrepancy which has been so obvious
to his critics from the beginning ; and that the more hkely
explanation is, that he and his critics are proceeding on
different principles in their reckonings. Nor is it hard,
perhaps, to see where at least the main part of the solution
lies ; the solution is, in fact, as old as the difficulty itself.
In the first place, it must be observed that the firstborn in
a family would be as often a daughter as a son ; this at once
reduces the number of sons to each mother by one half.1
In the next place, it is on every ground unlikely that
persons who were themselves married and heads of famihes
would be reckoned as " firstborns." It is more reasonable
to suppose that the reckoning was confined, as it has been
expressed, " to the rising generation — those who were still
children in the houses of their parents " — and that it did
not include all who had ever been firstborns in their own
generation ; fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers, if
still alive. That this was the real nature of the reckoning
seems established, among other considerations, by the analogy
of the firstborns in Egypt, where certainly fathers, grand
fathers, and more remote ancestors are not regarded as
included in the judgment.2 This again practically limits
the firstborns to those under twenty.8 These may have
formed about a third of the total number, or, if regard be
had to the longer ages of these times, may have been nearer
a fourth.4 Instead of 42 sons to each mother, there
fore, we are now brought down to nearly 5 ; and account
has still to be taken of cases in which the firstborn of a
family was dead, of polygamous marriages, or concubinage,
where possibly only the firstborn of the house was reckoned,5
and of a probable diminished rate of marriage in the last
years of the oppression, and in prospect of deliverance.
1 Colenso ingenuously observes that this does not rid us of the difficulty,
but only "changes the form of it, for each mother has still 42 children"
(ibid. p. 50). But, with all respect, the daughters are there in any case,
and have to he accounted for.
2 Pharaoh, e.g., was himself probably a firstborn, but was not slain.
On Colenso's view, in most houses there would be more than "one dead"
(Ex. xii. 30).
8 Colenso says that the text does not prescribe any such limit. But the
text does not state at all on what principle the reckoning was made.
4 Cf. Kohler's discussion, Bib. Geseh. pp. 288-89.
• In a family like Jacob's, e.g., how many "firstborns" would be
reckoned ; Reuben, whom Jacob calls "my firstborn" (Gen. xlix. 3), or all
the firstborns of the several wives! Cf. the law, Deut. xxi. 15, 17.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 369
These are not "harmonistic expedients," but explanations
that lie in the nature of the case, and are obviously
suggested by the reckoning itself.
The conclusion of our inquiry, therefore, brings us back
to the point we started from — strong confidence in the unity
of the narrative, and in its essential historical credibility.
V. General Results: Mosaicity of the Pentateuch
To what result — we must now ask — does our whole
investigation conduct us on the origin of the Priestly
Writing, and the age and composition of the Pentateuch
generally. We began by leaving it an open question
whether, or how many, separate documents were employed
in the compilation of that work, and if so, what were the
ages and mutual relations of these documents. To what
conclusions have we now been led?
For one thing, it is first to be said, not to the conclusion
that Moses himself wrote the Pentateuch in the precise
shape or extent in which we now possess it ; for the work,
we think, shows very evident signs of different pens and
styles, of editorial redaction, of stages of compilation. As
before observed, its composition has a history, whether we
are able ever to track satisfactorily that history or not.
On the other hand, next, very strongly to the view of the
unity, essential Mosaicity, and relative antiquity of the
Pentateuch. The unity which characterises the work has
its basis mainly in the history, knit together as that is by
the presence of a developing divine purpose ; but arises also
from the plan of the book, which must have been laid down
early, by one mind, or different minds working together,
while the memory of the great patriarchal traditions was yet
fresh, and the impressions of the stupendous deliverance
from Egypt, and of the wonderful events connected with,
andfollowing it, were yet recent and vivid. In the collation
and preparation of the materials for this work — some of
them, perhaps, reaching back into pre-Mosaic times — and
the laying of the foundations of the existing narratives, to
which Moses by his own compositions, according to constant
tradition, lent the initial impulse, many hands and minds
may have co-operated, and may have continued to co
operate, after the master-mind was removed ; but unity of
24

370 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES.
purpose and will gave a corresponding unity to the product
of their labours. So far from such a view being obsolete, or
disproved by modern criticism, we hold that internal in
dications, external evidence, and the circumstances of the
Mosaic age itself, unite in lending their support to its
probabihty. 1. It is in favour of the view we defend that it is in line
with the Bible's own constant tradition of the Mosaicity of
the Pentateuchal books, which the modern hypothesis
contradicts at every point. The Biblical evidence on this
subject of Mosaic origin is often unduly minimised, but it is
really very strong and pervasive. Apart from the assump
tion of the existence of a " book of the law of Moses " in
passages of the historical books,1 and the implication of its
existence in passages where it is not expressly mentioned ; 2
apart also from the firm belief of the Jews in the days of
our Lord and His apostles — a belief which our Lord
Himself shared 8 — there can be no question : —
(1) That all the three Codes — the Book of the Covenant,
the Deuteronomic discourses, and the Levitical Code —
profess to come from Moses, and the first and second
profess to have been written by him.4
(2) That the Deuteronomic discourses imply the existence,
in substance and in part in written form, of the JE history ;
and that the P writing, likewise, presupposes the JE history,
with which, in its narrative part, it is parallel.6
(3) That king Josiah and the Jewish people of his day
received Deuteronomy as a genuine work of Moses, and that
the nation ever after regarded it as his.6
(4) That the Jewish people of Ezra's time similarly
accepted the whole Pentateuch — including the Levitical
legislation — as genuinely Mosaic.7
(5) That the Samaritans received the Pentateuch at the
hands of the Jews as an undoubtedly Mosaic book.8
To these firm strands of tradition we may with
much confidence attach ourselves, without feeling that
1 Josh. i. 7, 8 ; viii. 30-35 ; xxiv. 26 ; 2 Kings xiv. 6 ; cf. 2 Chron.
xxv. 4, eto.
3 E.g., 1 Kings viii. 4 ff.
8 See Note B on our Lord's Testimony to Moses.
4 Cf. above, pp. 99, 152, 262. « Cf. above, pp. 107, eto.
" Cf. above, pp. 257 ff. 7 Ezra vi. 18 ; Neh. xiii. 1 ; cf. Mai. iv. 4.
8 See Note C on the Samaritan Pentateuch.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 371
" traditionalist," in such a connection, is any term of
reproach. As has happened in the case of the New
Testament,1 so, it may be predicted, it will prove also in the
case of the Old, that greater respect will yet come to be
paid to consentient tradition than it is now the fashion to
accord to it.
2. It is not, however, tradition merely which supports
the idea of an essential Mosaicity of the Pentateuch. A
strict apphcation of critical methods leads to the same
conclusion. We may sum up here the chief results at
which we have arrived.
(1) We have found no good reason for separating the
J and E of the critics, and regarding them as independent
documents ; and as httle for placing their origin as late as
the ninth or eighth century. We attach, as formerly said,
no importance to the supposed mirroring of later events in
the narratives, on which the argument for a late date is
chiefly founded.2 Gunkel, we saw, can find no trace in the
tradition in Genesis, apart from the reference to Edom
(chap, xxvii. 40), which looks beyond 900 B.c. ;8 and the
bulk of the JE narrative may well go back to Mosaic or
immediately post-Mosaic times. The older scholars did not
feel the need of bringing it, at latest, below the days of the
undivided kingdom, and there is no new evidence.
(2) We have been led, on historical and critical grounds,
to reject the theory of the Josianic . origin of Deuteronomy,
and, in accordance with the claim of the book itself, to
affirm the genuineness of the Deuteronomic discourses,
substantially in the form in which we have them. But
Deuteronomy, as repeatedly shown, attests the existence
and Mosaic character of the Book of the Covenant,4 founds
upon the JE history, and involves at least the presence of a
measure of Levitical legislation.5
1 Cf. Harnack, Chron. d. Altchrist. Lit., p. viii.
2 See above, pp. 111-12. Kuenen says : " References to historical facts,
such as might give a clue to the dates of composition, are extremely rare in
the 'prophetic' narratives of the Hexateuch." — Hex. p. 237. Still he finds
a few, as he thinks, in Edom, the wars of the Syrians, etc. In P there are
none such.
8 Genesis, p. lxii. See above on Edom, pp. 112, 209 ; also below, p. 373.
4 Dillmann puts the Decalogue and Book of the Covenant "in the first
days of the possession of the land, at latest in the days of Samuel." — Num.-
Jos. p. 644. He finds a few traces of later revision.
5 See above, Chap. VIII.

372 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
(3) We have found that there are the strongest critical
reasons for denying that the P writing (the peculiarities of
which are acknowledged) ever subsisted as an independent
document, and for regarding it, especially in Genesis, as
mainly a "framework" enclosing the contents of JE,1
though it has also, at certain points, its original, and, in
parts, considerable contributions to bring to the history.
We found ourselves compelled to reject the post-exilian
date assigned to the laws in this writing by the critics ; but
equally (here in agreement with the Wellhausen school)
the mediating view of those who regard the Code as a
private document originating in priestly circles under the
monarchy.2 There remains as the only alternative to the
post-exilian date the view — which was also that of the
older scholars — of the substantially Mosaic origin of the
laws.8 It has been seen that these contain no anachronisms,
but keep strictly within the limits of the Mosaic age.4 If,
however, the laws are early, there can be no good reason for
doubting the antiquity of the history with which they are
connected, for it was simply the assumption of the late date
of the laws which led, for consistency's sake, to the putting
of the history late.6 Further, from the close relation
subsisting between P and JE in the narratives, we are
compelled to assign both, as elements in a composite work,
to practically the same age.
3. Taking the Book of Genesis by itself, we may con
fidently affirm that, apart from the few words and phrases
commonly adduced, as "The Canaanite was then in the
land," 8 " Before there reigned any king over the children of
Israel,"7 there are no indications which point necessarily
beyond the Mosaic age,8 and even these do not point later
than the early days of the kingdom — if they do even this.
1 See earlier in chapter, pp. 840 ff. 3 See above, Chap. IX. pp. 326 ff.
8 Cf. pp. 328-29 above. 4 See above, p. 294.
6 See above, pp. 200, 334.
8 Gen. xii. 6 ; xiii. 7. The proper meaning of these passages seems to
us to be that the Canaanites — comparatively recent settlers (cf. Gen. xiv.
5-7 ; Deut. ii. 10-12, 20-23 ; see below, p. 529) — were already in the land
when Abraham entered it. No Jew needed to be informed that the Canaanites
had not then been dispossessed.
7 Gen. xxxvi. 31.
8 Whether as part of the original text, or a reviser's note, the words
naturally suggest that when they were written kings were reigning in
Israel. The list of Edom's kings, on the other hand, does not necessarily

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 373
"The Book of Genesis," says Kuenen himself, in words
already quoted, "may here be left out of account, since
the picture it contains of the age of the patriarchs gives no
unequivocal indications of the period at which it was
produced."1 On the other hand, there are not a few in
dications in the book, as well as references to it in other
books, which imply a high antiquity — this, also, especially
in its Elohistic parts. There is reason for believing that the
narratives of the creation and the flood in the P sections are
very old.2 The Fourth Commandment in Exodus is based,
both in chap. xx. 11 and chap, xxxi 17, on the sabbath-
rest of God in Gen. ii. 1-3 — a fact doubly significant if, as
Graf allows, " the Decalogue in the form in which it appears
handed down in Ex. xx. is manifestly older and more
original than that in Deut. v." 8 Deut. iv. 32 seems to be
a clear reference to the Elohistic account of the creation,
with its characteristic word bara ("in the day when
Elohim created man upon the earth"). The list of the
eight kings of Edom in Gen. xxxvi, which stops with
Hadar (ver. 39), apparently a person still living, points to a
date considerably earlier than Saul or David, when the inde
pendence of the kingdom ceased.4 Colenso, who is our ally
here against the post-exilian theory of the P narrative, points
out quite a number of other expressions which look back
to Genesis.6 He mentions, e.g., the phrase in Deuteronomy,
" Unto them and to their seed after them " (chaps, i 8,
iv. 37, x. 15), in which there seems allusion to the re-
carry us beyond the Mosaic age, and can hardly be extended to the time of
Saul (see below). Delitzsch says on the passage : "It does not necessarily
follow that the writer lived till the time of the Israelite kingdom, though
it looks like it." — Genesis, ii. p. 247.
1 Hex. p. 42. Cf. above, p. 111. Dr. Driver says on the above allusions :
"These are isolated passages, the inferences naturally authorized by which
might not impossibly be neutralized by the supposition that they were later
additions to the original narrative, and did not consequently determine by
themselves the date of the book as a whole." — Genesis, p. xv.
2 See next chapter, pp. 402 ff.
8 Geschicht. Bucher, p. 19 ; cf. Delitzsch, Genesis, i. pp. 30-31 ; Colenso,
Pent. Pt. vi. p. 584 ; App. pp. 124 ff.
4 Edom was under kings in Moses' time (Num. xx. 14), and it is
possible that Hadar may be the king then referred to ; at least no stretch
of reigns can easily bring Hadar down to the time of Saul. Delitzsch says :
"There is nothing against the supposition that Q [=P] is here communi
cating a document whose original author was a contemporary of Moses, and
survived to the entry into the promised land." — Genesis, ii. p. 249.
8 Pent. Pt. vi., as above.

374 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
curring P formula in Gen. xvii. 8; xxxv. 12; xlviii. 2 ; cf.
chaps, ix. 19, xvii. 7, 10, 19 ; the words in Deut. xxix. 13,
" that He may be to thee an Elohim," which seems distinctly
to refer to Gen. xvii. 7, 8, where alone we have such a
promise under solemn covenant ; the declaration in Isa. liv. 9
(at least not post-exi\ia,n), " I have sworn that as the waters
of Noah should no more go over the earth," etc., which
refers to the P phraseology and covenant in Gen. ix. 11.
The cumulative effect of these allusions, as against the
modern theory, is very great.
4. We have not attempted to go into detailed argument
on the history of the language} nor to rebut objections,
more frequently heard earlier than now,2 on the supposed
ignorance of the Hebrews in the Mosaic age of the art of
writing. The discussion of the language lies beyond our
province ; and discovery, as already seen, has thrown such
remarkable light on the existence, and wide diffusion of
writmg, in antiquity, specially among the peoples with
whom the Hebrews-were brought most closely into contact
(Babylonia, Egypt, Palestine),3 as to place the possibihty
of such hterary labours as we have been supposing beyond
reasonable doubt. Few, therefore, now found on the
assumption that writing was unknown, or not practised,
among the early Hebrews ; 4 less even is heard of the un
likelihood of an " undisciplined horde " of nomads possess
ing a knowledge of letters.6 Every indication shows that
the Hebrews, as they came up out of Egypt, were not a
people of this character, but had a good knowledge of the
arts and ways of civilised life.6 The Pentateuch, we saw
1 Cf. the general argument in Chap. III.
2 The argument was formerly very often urged, as by Von Bohlen,
Hartmann, etc., and is still occasionally met with. Cf. Reuss, e.g., Geschichte
des A.T., p. 96. Even Dillmann thinks it against the Mosaic com
position of the books that writing was not generally practised in the
beginning of the people's history (Num.-Jos. p. 594). Later discoveries
would probably have altered his opinion.
8 Cf. above, pp. 78 ff. ; see further in next chapter.
4 Kuenen (quoted by Vos) says: "That the Israelites possessed an
alphabet, and knew the art of writing, in the Mosaic age, is not subject
to reasonable doubt, and is now almost universally admitted." Kautzsch,
we have seen (p. 76), allows that Judg. viii. 14. (R.V.) proves that "the
art of writing had been gradually disseminated among the lower people." —
Lit. of O.T. , p. 10.
8 Thus Von Bohlen, etc. Most older scholars, however, e.g., Bleek,
upheld the Mosaic use of writing. So Colenso.
8 See above, pp. 79, 104, 154.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 375
before, assumes a knowledge of the art of writing;1 and
if such knowledge was possessed by Moses, and those about
him, there can be httle doubt but that it would be used.
There seems, accordingly, no bar in the way of the supposition
that in the age of Moses the main features of the language
as a vehicle of hterary expression were already established,
and, in some form of script, the use of writmg may go back
much earlier.2 On this point Dr. Driver says : " It is not
denied that the patriarchs possessed the art of writing";
but he thinks that the use of documents from the patriarchal
age is " a mere hypothesis, for the truth of which no positive
grounds can be alleged." 8 Even if it were so, it would be
in no worse case than much in the critical view itself,
which, if anything in the world ever was, is hypothesis
built on hypothesis.4 The value of a hypothesis is the
degree in which it explains facts, and, in the silence of
the Book .of Genesis,6 we can only reason from general
probabilities. But the probabihties, derived from the state
of culture at the time, from the fixed and circumstantial
character of the tradition, and from the archaeological
notices embedded in the book,6 are, we think, strong, that
the Hebrews, even in the patriarchal age, were to some extent
acquainted with books and writing. If so, we may beheve
that at an early period, in Egypt under Joseph, if not before,
attempts would be made to set down things in writing.7
5. We have used the term "collaboration" and "co
operation" to express the kind and manner of the activity
which, in our view, brought the Pentateuchal books into
their present shape,8 less, however, as suggesting a definite
theory of origin, than as indicating the labour of original
composers, working with a common aim, and towards a
common end, in contrast with the idea of late irresponsible
redactors, combining, altering, manipulating, enlarging at
1 See above, pp. 80 ff.
2 The question of the script used in early Hebrew writing (old
Phoenician, cuneiform, Minsean?) is one of great difficulty, on which
opinions are much divided. In the view of some the use of the Phoenician
alphabet by the Israelites does not go back beyond about 1000 B.o. But
this is unlikely. See Note D on Early Hebrew Writing.
8 Genesis, p. xiii. 4 See Note E on Hypotheses in Criticism.
8 The silence must not be pressed too far. See above, p. 80.
6 See above, pp. 78 ff. ; and cf. next chapter.
7 Cf. Hommel, Ancient Hebrew Tradition, pp. 277, 296.
8 See above, pp. 216, 354.

376 DIFFICULTIES AND PERPLEXITIES:
pleasure. It has been shown how the critical theory itself
tends to approximate to this idea of " co-operation " in the
production of tiie Hexateuch,1 though at the other end of
the development. What it puts at the end, we are disposed
to transfer to the beginning.
Beyond this we do not feel it possible to go with any
degree of confidence. It may very well be — though every
thing here is more or less conjectural — that, as already
hinted, the original JEP history and Code embraced, not
simply the Book of the Covenant, but a brief summary of
the Levitical ordinances, analogous, as Dillmann thinks, to
the so-called Law of Holiness ; possibly also, as Delitzsch
supposes, a short narrative, in its proper place, of the last
discourses of Moses, and of his death.2 We have seen
that Deuteronomy, in its original form, was probably an
independent work ; the priestly laws, also, would be at first
chiefly in the hands of the priests. Later, but still, in our
opinion, early — possibly in the times immediately succeeding
the conquest, but not later than the days of the undivided
kingdom — the original work would be enlarged by union with
Deuteronomy, and by incorporation of the larger mass of
Levitical material. In some such way, with possible re
vision by Ezra, or whoever else gave the work its final
canonical shape, our Pentateuch may have arisen.
It is difficult, however, to suppose that this large work,
assuming its origin to be as early as we have suggested,
ever had, in its completeness, any wide circulation, or was
frequently copied in its entirety. As in the Christian
Church, before the days of printing, it was customary to
copy out selected books and portions, as the Psalter, or
the Gospels ; so, it may reasonably be presumed, the parts
of the Pentateuch copied out for general use, and in more
common circulation, would ordinarily be those to which we
still turn as the more interesting and edifying — the story
of the patriarchs and of Moses, the history of the Exodus
and the wanderings, the Book of Deuteronomy, short digests
of laws, etc. The detailed Levitical Code would be left to
the priests, and would be known mainly through the praxis,
1 See Note F on the idea of " Co-operation " in Critical Theory.
2 See above, p. 284. Similarly, in place of the present detailed de
scriptions, there may have been shorter accounts of the making of the ark
and tabernacle.

THE PRIESTLY WRITING. II. DOCUMENT 377
or by oral instruction at the sanctuary. The "law of
Jehovah," of which we read so much in the Psalter, by
which the piety of the godly in Israel was nourished, which
enlightened, converted, directed, warned, comforted, cleansed,
made fruitful, the souls that delighted in it, was assuredly,
as before remarked,1 something very different from the dry
Levitical regulations. The versions of these books in
circulation would also have their vicissitudes; would
undergo the usual textual corruptions ; may have received
unauthorised modifications or additions; may have had
their Jehovistic and Elohistic recensions. But the sense in
pious minds that it was Jehovah's " law " — embodying the
" words of His lips " 2 — which they were dealing with would
check rash freedoms, and the means of correction would
never be wholly lost. God's" people had a "Bible" then,
and, as it comes to us from their hands, we may cherish
the confidence that it has suffered no change which unfits
it for being our Bible also.8
1 See above, pp. 263-64.
2 Ps. xvii. 4 ; cf. Pss. i., xviii. 21, 22, xix. 7-11, xxv., etc.
8 The statements made as to the liberties taken with the text of the
Hebrew Scriptures in pre-Christian times are often much too sweeping.
See Note 0 on the State of the Hebrew Text.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
The Latee Historical Books
It is not proposed to discuss at length . the problems con
nected with the age, authorship, and credibility of the later
historical books of the Old Testament. Incidentally the
history in the later books has been defended in the pre
ceding chapters, and will receive further illustration in the
chapter on archaeology. The Pentateuchal question is, as
everyone acknowledges, the fundamental one in Old Testa
ment criticism. If that stone can be dislodged, the critics
have shaken the edifice of the Old Testament to its base.
If the attack on that foundation is repelled, the succeeding
history has not much to fear from assault. It will be
sufficient here to indicate the bearings of the results already
arrived at on the composition and authority of the later
books. I. We may briefly indicate, first, the bearing of the
acceptance of the critical theory on the age and value of
the books in question.
1. If the P element in the Pentateuch is of exilian or
post-exilian date, then necessarily all assumed P sections
in the Book of Joshua must be post-exilian also, and, on
the theory, destitute of historical worth. This condemns,
e.g., the whole account of the division of the land in the
second half of Joshua.1 Similarly, all passages or allusions
in later books, which imply the existence of P or its institu
tions must (or may) be held to be late. Everything of this
nature, therefore, — tent of meeting, Levites, high priest, etc., —
is usually struck out as interpolation. The Levitical
representations in the Books of Chronicles are a priori
discredited, and put out of court as worthless.
1 Of. below, pp. 379-80.
S78

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 379
2. In the same way, if Deuteronomy is a composition
of the age of Josiah, then all Deuteronomic sections, or
revisions in the D style, of the historical books
must be later than Deuteronomy, and cannot be taken as
genuine history. Large sections of Joshua — the reading
of the law on Mount Ebal, e.g., chap. vhi. 30 ff. — and of
Judges, are thus discredited as the unhistorical work of
a D1 or D2, etc.1 The Books of Kings are a late com
pilation from a Deuteronomic point of view, and exhibit
a revision of the history in a Deuteronomic spirit which
amounts, in its effect, to a falsification of it.2 The mystery
is why this Deuteronomic revision has left nearly untouched
the Books of Samuel,8 and, in view of most, the narratives
of the Pentateuch.4
3. If the JE narratives belong at earhest to the ninth or
eighth centuries, a presumption is created, in the opinion
of the critics, in favour of their legendary character, and
all additions or redactions of members of the " school " must
be later, and less trustworthy, still. As Deuteronomy rests
on the JE histories, the late date of that book is held to
be confirmed. II. The matter presents itself in a very different hght
when looked at from the opposite point of view.
1. If the P sections in the Pentateuch are not of post-
exilian date, but go back to early times, there is no need
for putting the P sections in Joshua late ; or for expunging
the allusions to priesthood and tabernacle in the historical
books ; or even, on this ground, for discrediting the state
ments of the Books of Chronicles.6 Delitzsch, e.g., pre
cisely inverting the usual style of argument, finds his
conclusion that " the hterary activity of the Elohistic pen
reaches back to ancient times nearly approaching those
of Moses " actually " confirmed by the Book of Joshua," with
its account of the division of the land. " Modern criticism,"
he says, " indeed greatly depreciates the historical authority
1 Cf. Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 236.
2 Ibid. pp. 228, 274, 281, etc.
8 Kautzsch finds a few traces of Deuteronomic revision in Samuel (Lit.
of O.T., pp. 95-96, 238); Driver apparently (with Budde) fewer (Introd.
pp. 173, 183).
4 "Comparatively infrequent" (Kautzsch, p. 95).
8 See below, pp. 388-89.

380 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
of the priestly narrator in matters relating to the history
of the conquest; but the priestly narrator wrote also the
main bulk of the account of the division, and this may
lay claim to documentary authority. For that this history
of the division is based upon written documents may be
conjectured from its very nature, while the sepher (book)
of the commissioners entrusted with the task of describing
the land (chap, xviii. 9), shows that the division of the land
was carried out with legal accuracy. ... It is therefore
quite an arbitrary assertion, at least with respect to the
history of the division, that the priestly narrator of the
Book of Joshua was of more recent times than the Jehovist
and the Deuteronomian, and it is certainly possible that
the Deuteronomian himself composed and formed the Book
of Joshua from Jehovistic and Elohistic models."1
2. If Deuteronomy is not late, but early, and if the
discourses contained in it are in substance really Mosaic,
then the reason falls for discrediting the D sections and
colouring in Joshua, Judges, and Kings. A good deal, we
shall see below,2 is taken for granted in speaking of
"Deuteronomic" revision. In any case, assuming such to
be present, it neither, on the view we uphold, argues late
date nor unhistorical presentation. There is no longer
ground, e.g., for questioning the genuineness in substance
of such speeches as Solomon's at the dedication of the
temple (1 Kings viii.), or the justice of the condemnation
of the toleration of high places; or for regarding these
"Deuteronomic" speeches as compositions of an exilian
compiler. We do not deny that there may be a measure
of freedom in the reproduction of the speeches, but they
need not on that account be late, or untrue to the occasion
on which they were delivered.
III. The critical treatment of the historical books is
itself a strong argument for the second of these views
rather than the first. Not only does the critical hypothesis
imply invention and falsification of history on an unpre
cedented scale, but it results in a disintegration of the
1 Genesis, p. 49. See above, p. 242, and cf. Konig, art. "Judges," in
Hastings' Diet, of Bible, who shows that the partition is implied in the
"lot "of Judg. i. (ii. p. 820).
2 See also above, p. 255.

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 381
books in a fashion as complicated and bewildering as in
the Pentateuch analysis, and often, as the radical disagree
ment of critics shows, as assumptive and arbitrary.
The Book of Joshua has already been referred to. A
few remarks may be made on the others.
In general, it is not denied that the historical books
are compilations, for the most part, from older writings,
which criticism is quite within its rights in endeavouring
to distinguish if it can. It is the fact that the books
embody old and authentic material which gives them their
value. The narratives incorporated in the Book of Judges,
e.g., must in many cases have taken shape not long after
the events which they relate, — the Song of Deborah is
practically contemporary,1 — and the sources of the Books
of Samuel are, in like manner, very old. There seems no
ground for doubting the view, borne out by the notices in
the later books, that the prophets themselves — from Samuel
on — acted as the sacred " historiographers " of their nation,
and that it is to narratives composed by them that we owe
the greater part , of the material embodied in our canonical
writings2 (hence the name "former prophets" applied to
Joshua — 2 Kings, excepting Ruth). What is objected to is
not a cautious discrimination based on the clear phenomena
of the books, but the assumption of the abihty to dissect
a historic book into its minutest parts, and distribute out
the fragments to writers of widely separated ages, with
frequently a wholesale impeachment of the integrity of
the composers.
1. We take the Book of Judges as a first example. In
1 See above, p. 76. Such allusions, e.g., as those to Jerusalem and Gezer
(ohap. i. 21, 29), point to a date before the monarchy, though the book as
a whole implies that it was compiled when the kingdom was settled
(chaps, xvii. 6, xviii. 1, xix. 1, etc.).
sCf. Kirkpatriok, Divine Library of O.T., pp. 13 ff. (so in Introd. to
Samuel); Ottley, Aspects of O.T., p. 145, etc. ; of older writers, Bleek,
Introd. i. pp. 175 ff. ; S. Davidson, Introd. to O.T., ii. pp. 68-69, 682 ff., etc.
Ottley says: "There is little reason to doubt that the documents which
form the substratum of the Books of Samuel and Kings were official notices
of political events, and nearly contemporary narratives, some of which may
reasonably be supposed to have been written by prophets like Gad, Nathan,
Iddo, and others" (p. 145). See Kirkpatrick's remarks (Samuel, p. 10)
on the view "that Samuel, Nathan, and Gad were the subjects, not the
authors, of the works referred to." In some cases the fact is patent
that the work is a history by the person named ; the presumption is it was
so in all. Cf. S. Davidson, Introd. ii. pp. 68-69 ; Zbckler, Chroniclef.
("Lange"),pp. 17,ff.;.eto..

382 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
Kautzsch, who is by no means the extremest of the critics,
we have the book parcelled out into a great number of
elements. We have H1, an older stratum of Hero-Stories,
constituting the nucleus of the book ; H2, Hero-Stories from
the early kingly period; ri, fragments of a hst of Judges
from the later kingly period; Ri, the first Deuteronomic
compiler; N and N1, pre-Deuteronomic compilers of the
narratives in the appendix ("chaps, xx., xxi. originally came
from this source, but have been thoroughly revised by a
hand related to the Priests' Code ") ; R, the post-exilic editor
or editors of the present book. In addition there are " later
glosses " and " passages of doubtful origin " (Jephthah). As
showing the minuteness of the analysis, we may give the
parts attributed to N1— "xvii. 2-4, 6, 12 ; xviii. la, 2*, 7*,
106, 14* 15*, 18*, 20* 30." a The asterisks mean worked
over by redactors. Does criticism here by its very minute
ness not destroy confidence in itself ? 2
It is the Deuteronomic editor of Judges who, we
are told, has supplied the introduction and unhistorical
"scheme" of the book, representing the alternate declen
sions and repentances of the people, with their corre
sponding experiences of oppression and dehverance. This
is declared to be doubly unhistorical : (1) As picturing the
people as a unity, " acting together, suffering together, re
penting together, ruled over as a whole by one judge at a
time," whereas " up to that time the Hebrew tribes had no
such sense of unity";3 and (2) as crediting them with a
religious knowledge and ideal of duty they did not possess.
" There is no conception of spiritual worship or moral duty
in the book."4 On which representations three things, in
reply, may be said : —
(1) Is it perfectly clear — Konig at least thinks not 6 —
1Lit. ofO.T.,yjp. 234-36.
2 See the searching criticism of the analysis and arguments of Budde and
others by Konig in art. "Judges," in Diet, of Bible. A good conspectus of
the agreements and differences of critical opinion is given in the tables in
the introduction to Nowack's Commentary on Judges and Euth (" Hand-
kommentar"), pp. xxiv ff.
8 Thatcher, Judges (''Cent. Bible"), p. 6. So Driver, Moore, Nowack,
etc. , after Wellhausen, Compos, d. Hex. pp. 229-30 ; Hist, of Israel, pp. 231,
233-35. 4 Hnd. p. 23.
5 "Judges" in Diet, of Bible, ii. pp. 812, 816 ; cf. Einleit. pp. 251-54.
Moore thinks there is not sufficient ground for identifying this Deuteronomic
author of the preface and framework of Judges "with anyone of the

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 383
that the introduction and framework are Deuteronomic in the
sense intended ? But whether they are or not, it is still to
be shown that the representation of alternate declension and
deliverance given as the interpretation of the history is false
to the facts. Professor Robertson points out very pertinently
that the summary in Judges gives precisely the same picture
of the people's behaviour as the prophets give after.1 It is
not the Book of Judges simply, but Israel's whole repre
sentation of its history — early and late — that is challenged.
(2) It is at least an exaggeration to say that Israel had
no sense of its unity. There are the best grounds for
believing that Israel, in the initial stages of the conquest,
acted as one people under Joshua,2 and even when the tribes
settled in their various regions, this sense of unity was never
wholly lost.3 A consciousness of unity is already very
strongly expressed in the Song of Deborah, and in chaps, xx.,
xxi, which for that very reason (as by Thatcher) 4 is made
post-exilian. A critic like Konig says : " The assertion that
in the time of the Judges ' a common acting on the part of
the twelve tribes of Israel is excluded ' (Budde on chaps, xix-
xxi) is quite ungrounded. ... If in the period of the Judges
one could not entertain the notion that a common danger to
Israel could not be warded off by the common action of all
the tribes, one could not have blamed those tribes which
kept aloof in the struggle against the northern Canaanites
(Judg. v. 15-17)." 5 "It is not only in prose," says Dr.
A. B. Davidson, " that this mode of speech prevails, in which
it might be due to later conceptions, and to a point of view
taken after the rise of the kingdom; the same manner of
Deuteronomic writers in Deuteronomy or Joshua, or with the Deuteronomic
author of Kings" (Judges, "Internat. Crit. Com." p. xvii). He puts him
later than the sixth century B.C.
1 Rel. of Israel, pp. 116-17 (see above, p. 40). "This summary of
the period might have been written by Hosea himself, or by Amos ; and if
there is any truth in what they say about prophets before them, anyone
from the days of Samuel might have written it" (p. 117).
2 See above, p. 241 ; cf. Konig, "Judges," ii. pp. 814, 819.
8 Cf. the " all Israel " in Eli's time (1 Sam. ii. 14 ; iii. 20 ; see above,
p. 171). 4 Judges, p. 17. On these chapters, see below.
5 "Judges," in Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 816. Cf. pp. 814, 815, 819. On
chaps, xx.-xxi. he says : " The present writer believes that there are more
traces of the unity of ancient Israel than are wont at present to be recognised
by some scholars. . . . Hence the judgment of the present writer is that
not the section chap, xx.-xxi. 14 as a whole, but only single elements in it
(e.g., the round numbers), bear a secondary character" (p. 819).

384 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
speaking appears in the Song of Deborah. ... In spite of
actual disintegration, the conception of an Israel forming a
unity, the people of Jehovah, appears everywhere." x
(3) It is a still greater exaggeration to say that there is
" no conception of spiritual worship or moral duty " in the
book. Higher religious and moral conceptions, mingling
with the ruder elements, are imphed,2 not simply in the
recurrent narratives of repentance, and in the lofty strains
of the Song of Deborah,3 but in the admitted fact that the
conditions had in them the germ of the " spiritual and ethical
worship " 4 to which the people afterwards attained, and in
the possibility, even, of such a religious revival as we find
under Samuel.6 We do not envy the reader who can see
no evidences of a spiritual faith in the history of a man like
Gideon.6 Is there not through all the history a vein of
recognition of obligation to Jehovah, of a law of righteous
providential requital,7 of the heinousness of wanton cruelty 8
and unrestrained licentiousness ? 9 The beautiful family
history of Ruth also has to be relegated to the region of
post-exilian fiction before the utter lack of spiritual rehgion
can be made out.10
The alleged P element in Judges is found in redactional
notes, but chiefly in the alleged working over of an older
narrative (so most think : not Wellhausen) in chaps, xx., xxi11
It is this section also (the story of the Levite and his concu-
1 O.T. Prophecy, pp. 33, 34. On the local character of the Judges,
Konig says : " If an explanation of the local origin of these Judges is to be
sought for, it is most natural to find it in the circumstance that the hero
sprang up from the tribe which felt most the weight of the invader's oppres
sion " (p. 815).
2 Cf. again Konig, pp. 816, 821. 8 See above, pp. 130-31.
4 Thatcher, p. 24.
6 1 Sam. vii. That Samuel effected a revival of religion even an extreme
scepticism must admit. This throws back light on the repentances under
the Judges.
8 Judg. vi., viL 7 E.g., Judg. i. 7 ; ix. 24, 56.
8 Judg. ix. 24, etc.
8 Judg. xix. 23, 24, 30 ; xx. 6 ff. Cf. Konig, p. 816.
10 Cf. Konig, Einleitung, pp. 287 ff. Konig sees in Ruth' an exilian re
cension of an old writing of the age of the sources of Samuel and Kings.
Driver calls it "pre-exilic" (Introd. p. 455). Reuss, Oettli, Strack, etc.,
also reject the exilian and post-exilian dates.
11 Driver, Moore, Thatcher, etc., divide chap. xix. from chaps, xx.,
xxi. , recognising the homogeneity of chap. xix. with what goes before ;
Wellhausen apparently treats chap. xix. -xxi. as a whole (Compos, pp.
229 ff.), and does not admit duplication in chap. xx. (cf. Budde, Rieht.
und Sam. p. 389 ; Moore, p. 406).

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 385
bine, and of the war with Benjamin, chaps. xix.-xxi 14) which,
in the eyes of the critics, lacks most clearly in credibility,1
though a historical kernel is sometimes recognised. Besides
the unity argument, and hnguistic phenomena thought to
betray a later age (dependent on the assumption about
P),2 stress is laid on the apparent exaggeration of numbers.
Such exaggerations, assuming them to exist, may grow up
in far less time than the critics allow, and may be pressed
too far.3 Dr. Driver,.in turn, exaggerates when he reads into
the text that on the first two days of battle " not one of the
25,000 + 700 of the Benjamites fell." 4 We are hardly dealing
here with head by head counts ; besides, "fell," "smitten," "de
stroyed," do not necessarily mean that every man was " slain."
There seems to us no convincing ground, apart from the
reasonings on D and P, for placing the Book of Judges later
than the period of the undivided kingdom. There is no
trace of Jerusalem as capital, or of the temple. The
expression " until the day of the captivity of the land " in
chap, xviii. 30, is naturally the equivalent of " all the time
that the house of God was in Shiloh" in ver. 31.6 It is
precarious, at least, to build an argument for a later date
on this verse alone.
2. A next example of critical procedure is afforded by
1 "The historical character of chaps, xx., xxi. 1-14," says Moore,
" will hardly be seriously maintained : in the whole description of the war
there is hardly a semblance of reality " (p. 405).
2 Cf. Konig, as above. In treating of the relation to the Pentateuch
sources, Konig alludes to "the impossibility of making true progress in
critical science if a number of results are assumed as already proved, and
one makes it his main object always to pile up higher storeys on the building
of the literary criticism of the Old Testamerit" (p. 811).
8 On the use of round numbers, see below, p. 390. The 400,000, as a
number for the whole armed force of Israel (chap. xx. 2, 17), is not out of
keeping with other enumerations (Ex. xii. 37 ; 2 Sam. xxiv. 9), though it
is certainly improbable and perhaps is not meant, that all took part in the
war at Gibeah,(cf. chap. xx. 9, 10).
4 Introd. p. 169. Dr. Driver unnecessarily changes the 26,000 of chap.
xx. 15 into 25,000, after Cod. A of the LXX. The ordinary LXX text has
23,000, clearly a mistake, and there may be other confusions in the
numbers. Cf. Kohler, Bib. Geseh. ii. p. 64.
6 Bleek, who regards the Book of Judges as pre-Deuteronomic, and in
substance early, takes this view of the passage. "The context shows clearly
that nothing else can be meant by the terminus ad quern . . . than the
time indicated in ver. 31 " (Introd. i. p. 384). Bleek, Riehm, Konig, etc.,
think that "land " is a corruption for the (in Heb. resembling) word " ark " ;
Strack puts the book in the flourishing days of the kingdom, and thinks
this clause to be a later addition (Einleit. p. 66).
25

386 APPENDIX TO CHAFFER X
the Books of Samuel. Kautzsch here admits old and valuable
sources — a " Saul-Source," a " David-Source," a " Jerusalem-
Source," dating from times immediately after Solomon, with,
of course, later and less reliable, but still eighth century,
narratives, and "redactional additions of various kinds,"
some of them post-exilian.1 Dr. Driver also makes the
work as a whole "pre-Deuteronomic."2 A considerably
different view is taken by Professor H. P. Smith. In his
Commentary on Samuel this critic distinguishes a work
which he calls SI, written soon after the death of Solomon,
embracing a brief life of Saul, an account of David at the
court of Saul and as outlaw, and a history of David's reign.8
With this was united a second — divergent and theocratic —
account, denoted by him* Sm, which contained narratives of
the early life and doings of Samuel, and of the early life,
adventures, and part of the reign of David. This he
supposes to have originated, with incorporation of older
matter, "perhaps in or after the exile."4 In details also
the analysis is far from agreeing. There is tolerable
agreement that chaps. ix.-x. 16, xi, xiii. 2-xiv. 46 belong
(mainly) to an old "Saul" source, which represents a
different type of narrative from that in chaps, vii 2-17,
viii, x. 17-25, xii., xv. ; but otherwise there are important
differences. Dr. Driver, e.g., connects chaps, i-iv. la, as a
" somewhat later " introduction, with chaps, iv. l&-vii 1 ;
and divides this whole section from chaps, vii. 2-17 (" of
later origin"), viii, etc. — the "theocratic" story ( = Sm).
But H. P. Smith puts chaps, i- — iii. into his (exihan) Sm
Btory, and assigns to Sm also, from older sources, the other
parts up to chap, vii.6 Dr. Kautzsch divides still more
minutely, and in 2 Samuel makes a separate source (his
" Jerusalem-Source ") of 2 Sam. vi, ix.-xx., which H. P.
Smith, again, includes in his Sl.e All, however, happily,
make this long narrative quite early. The chief point is
that H. P. Smith carries down to the exile a long narrative
(Sm), beginning with 1 Sam. i.-vi, which the others take
to be at least not later (apart from redactional touchings)
than the eighth century.7 But then in an Appendix Professor
1 Lit. of O.T., pp. 236 ff. ; cf. pp. 27 ff.
2 Introd. p. 177. 8 Samuel, p. 408.
4 Ibid. p. xx. 8 Ibid. p. xix. * Ibid. p. 408.
7 On the wide differences of the critical schools see m detail Kohler,
Bib. Geseh. ii. p. 135.

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 387
H. P. Smith has to contend against a new writer, Dr. M.
Lohr (1898),1 who discards Sm for fragments inserted into
SI at different dates.2
All this is bewildering enough ; but, even with different
sources, the attempt to break up the unity of the book, and
estabhsh for the different narrators opposite and irrecon
cilable points of view, is vastly overdone. The " theocratic "
view is presumed to be a later gloss upon the history, and
the earlier account, which is said to represent Samuel as
"the seer of a small town, respected as one who blesses
the sacrifices and presides at the local festival, but known
only as a clairvoyant, whose information concerning lost
or strayed property is reliable," 3 is accepted as the really
historical version. Thus Samuel gets effectively stripped
of any false glory a pious imagination has invested him
with ! It is, however, the imagination of the critic chiefly
that is astray. Dr. Driver, who is not extreme here, divides
chaps, i-vii 1 from what follows expressly on the ground
that " hitherto Samuel has appeared only as a prophet ; here
(chap. vii. ff.) he is represented as a 'judge.' " 4 Yet all these
chapters, as shown above, Professor H. P. Smith gives to his
"theocratic" narrator (Sm) — the same who represents
Samuel as a "judge." The charge of "partisanship," again,
often brought against the " Saul " and " David " sources
(both mostly included in H. P. Smith's SI) is fittingly dealt
with by Dr. Kautzsch. " But the partisanship," he says, " of
the one source for Saul and of the other for David, which
used to be so frequently assevted, cannot really be proved.
. . . After all, it is by no means impossible for both sources
to have come from one hand."6
The Books of Samuel, it appears to us, may well be based
on such nearly contemporary narratives as are referred to
in 1 Chron. xxix. 29,6 and the date of their composition need
1 A very full comparative survey of modern views is given in parallel
columns in Lbhr's Samuel, pp. xiv-lxv.
2 Ibid. pp. 409 ff. Lohr's work, though advanced in criticism, is more
conservative than most in respect of text (cf. pp. vi, xc).
8 Ibid. p. xvi. Kautzsch puts this more moderately (p. 29).
• Introd. p. 174.
'Lit. of O.T., pp. 27-28. Kautzsch, however, stall finds the sources
" freely inlaid with passages taken from a quite different source (SS., eighth
century = part of Sm), and with redactional additions." This also, we
believe, examination would show to be precarious, and pushed needlessly far-
8 See above, p. 381.

388 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
not be carried much lower than where Ewald puts it, some
twenty or thirty years after the death of Solomon.1
3. We glance finally, briefly, at the Books of Chronicles.
These are, it is well known, the veritable btte noire of the
critics. The Levitical proclivities and representations of
this writer — only, however, be it said, in certain parts of
his work,2 for in the greater portion of it the parallelism
with the older texts is close — are a constant irritation to
them. De Wette made the first vigorous onslaught on the
credibility of Chronicles ; 8 Graf returned to the charge with
new arguments ; 4 and Wellhausen, from the standpoint of
the post-exilian origin of the law, has elaborated the attack
with unsparing scorn and severity.6 Yet unfairly — and
unnecessarily.6 Let all be granted that can be fairly
alleged of the Chronicler's predominant Levitical interest,
of his homiletical expansions, as, e.g., in the speech of
Abijah (2 Chron. xiii 4 ff.),7 of his dropping the veil on
the sins of David and Solomon,8 of his occasional exaggera-
1 Cf. Bleek, Introd. i. p. 400. Bleek himself thinks " probably later," but
still, on the basis of older records (p. 405), and before the destruction of the
kingdom of the Ten Tribes. Kirkpatrick says " there are no cogent reasons
for referring the compilation of the Book of Samuel to a late date," and finds
the primary authorities for large parts of the history in Samuel and Kings
in ' ' the narratives of contemporary prophets " ( The Divine Library of O.T. ,
pp. 14, 15 ; cf. his Introd. to Samuel).
2 The most notable examples are the account of David's bringing up of
the ark, and his subsequent organisation of the Levites (1 Chron. xv. ff. ;
xxiii.-xxviii. ) ; Solomon's Dedication of the temple (2 Chron. v. 4, 5, 11-14) ;
Abijah's speech (2 Chron. xiii.) ; the proclamation of Joash (2 Chron. xxiii.) ;
the reformation of Hezekiah (2 Chron. xxix.-xxxi.) ; and the Passover of
Josiah (2 Chron. -xxxv.) — nearly all temple matters. See Van Hoonacker
below. 8 In his Beitrage (1806). 4 Geschicht. Bucher, Pt. ii.
8 Hist, of Israel, pp. 171 ff.
8 How far the last word is from having been spoken on the credibility of
the Chronicles in relation to Samuel and Kings may be seen from the full
and able discussions (with bearing on the sections noted above) in Van
Hoonacker's Le Sacerdoce Livitique, pp. 21 ff. Cf. also Klostermann's art.
"Chronik" in the new Realencyklopadie, iv. pp. 84 ff.
7 Even Keil admits an element of free reproduction in the speeches
(Chronicles, pp. 40, 41), whether due to the Chronicler himself or found in
his source.
8 It is to be remembered that the Chronicler does not aim at giving a
complete history, but only excerpts bearing on the progress of the theocracy,
and throughout assumes that the older history1 is known (cf. Dillmann,
"Chronik," Herzog's Realencyk. iii. p. 221). There is nothing, e.g., of the
early life of David, there is a leap from the death of Saul to David's pro
clamation as king of all Israel at Hebron, the Northern Kingdom is
disregarded, etc. Wellhausen allows that "the Chronicler indeed knows

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 389
tion in numbers — whether his own or a copyist's1 — the
gravamen of the charge against him still lies in the assump
tion, wholly unfounded, as we beheve, that the Levitical
system was not in operation before the exile. If it was,
there is no a priori objection to the representations of the
Chronicler. On the other hand, the supposition of Well
hausen, that all the Chronicler's elaborate descriptions, lists
of names, details of arrangements, are pure inventions of
his fancy, is weighted with the heaviest improbabilities, and
cannot be reconciled with the integrity of the writer, which
some are still anxious to uphold. We find it hard to
imagine, for instance, how anyone can read the long and
circumstantial account of Hezekiah's great passover,2 or
even the elaborate descriptions of David's sanctuary
arrangements,3 and not feel that the writer is reproduc
ing bona fide — if in some places in his own fashion —
documentary information that has come down to him.4
The critics, on the other hand, will allow him no other
sources than our existing Books of Samuel and Kings — a
view which not only his own references, but many
phenomena in his book decidedly contradict 6 -»*and set
down all else to sheer wantonness of invention. The
evidence points in a quite different direction — to the use
of older sources dealing with these matters from the point
of view of the temple,6 in which case his narratives afford
a valuable positive corroboration of the results already
obtained. While, therefore, it is freely admitted that Chronicles
can only take secondary rank as a historical authority in
comparison with Samuel and Kings, we have no reason to
them all well enough, as is clear from incidental expressions in chaps, xi.
and xii." (Hist, of Israel, pp. 172-73). What then was he to gain from his
silence ? He records David's theocratic sin of numbering the people (1 Chron.
xxi.), and narrates impartially the sins of Asa, Joash, Aruaziah, etc. (not
in Kings). See further below.
1 See below, p. 390. " 2 Chron. xxx.
8 1 Chron. xxiii. ff. Cf. on this, Klostermann, Geschichte d. Koikes Israel,
p. 161. 4 The bona fides of the Chronicler in the use of his sources is upheld by
Dillmann, Klostermann, Van Hoonacker, etc. See below.
5 It is questioned by hardly any that he knew and used the Books of
Samuel and Kings, but these were not his only sources.
8 Till recently, this was the general view. Cf. Bleek, Keil, S. Davidson,
Zockler, Dillmann, etc. It is vigorously upheld by Klostermann (art.
cited) and Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce, pp. 70 ff. and passim.

390 APPENDIX TO CHAPTER X
doubt the perfect good faith of its author,1 the value of much
of his Levitical information, and, in general, the credibility
of his book. In special points in which its accuracy has
been impugned — as in the captivity of Manasseh in Babylon2
— discovery has brought to it valuable corroboration. Apart
from the numbers, which, taken literally, are indeed in some
cases " incredibly large," Zockler goes so far as to say that
"the only nearly certain example of error on his part,
arising, apparently, from geographical ignorance, is the
explanation of the Tarshish ships of the Red Sea as being
designed to trade to Tarshish " (2 Chron. ix. 21 ; xx. 36).3
Even in regard to the numbers he says : " If we except this
one passage, all else of an erroneous nature in the text is
most probably to be reduced to errors in copying, that
either existed in his sources, or were introduced into his
text." * That may be too unqualified also.6 Possibly, as Keil
suggests,6 such excessive numbers as we have in 2 Chron.
xhi. 3, 17, 800,000 fighting men for Israel, 400,000 for
Judah, 500,000 of Israel slain, are, if not corrupt, meant to
be taken only as round numerical expressions for the whole
or half of the respective forces (cf. 2 Sam. xxiv. 9). It is not
to be overlooked, moreover, that sometimes it is Chronicles
that gives the smaller number (cf., e.g., 1 Chron. xi. 11, with
2 Sam. xxiii. 8 ; 2 Chron. ix. 25, with 1 Kings iv. 26), and
in some cases the numbers are undeniably corrupt.7 On the
1 " It is now recognised," wrote Dillmann (referring to the attacks of De
Wette and Graf) " that the Chronicler has worked according to sources, and
that there can be no talk in regard to him of intentional fabrications or
misrepresentations of the history" ("Chronik," Herzog, iii. p. 223). Cf.
the remarks of Prof. Robertson, Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, pp. 92 ff.
2 "The account," says Dr. S. Davidson, " awakens grave doubts of the
fidelity of the Chronist, " and he concludes that the narrative is ' ' unhistorical "
(Introd. ii. pp. 97-100). See below, p. 427. Also on Shishak, p. 426.
8 Chronicles, p. 25. Most admit that the Chronicler has here misunder
stood his source (cf. 1 Kings x. 22 ; xxii. 49) ; at least it is highly improb
able that ships made voyages round Africa from the Red Sea to Tarshish
(but see in Zockler, p. 28).
4 Ibid.
8 Dillmann, however, may be quoted again : " So far as we can judge
from Chronicles itself, we have no reason to suspect the trustworthiness of
the sources ; a mass of differences between Chronicles and the Books of
Kings in names, numbers, expressions, are satisfactorily explained by
accidental corruptions of the text, be it in Kings, in Chronicles, or in
the books which are their sources " (as above, p. 224).
• Chronicles, pp. 350-55.
7 A curious illustration of the facility of error is afforded by the fact that,
in the very act of stating the large number of Jeroboam's army in 2 Chron.

THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS 391
whole there is abundant ground for the moderate and
sensible judgment of an older critic like Bleek: "If we
only possessed this work alone as an historical source for
the times and circumstances treated of in the Chronicles,
the latter would in no way afford us a complete and exact
picture of them ; but, together with the other books, it gives
us very valuable and important additions to the accounts of
the latter, and a crowd of important details, which serve
to make them complete both in general, and in special
points." 1
xiii. 3, in Smith's Diet, of Bible, i. p. 113, the 800,000 is misprinted
300,000. * Introd. i. p. 442. The strong words of Klostermann may be cited in
closing this discussion. "Grant," he says, "that the image conceived by
the Chronist and his predecessors, e.g., of the development of the cultus,
totally contradicts that which the modern theology, with ignoring of their
accounts, has sketched on the basis of the extraordinarily sparse, uncon
nected, and ambiguous casual intimations of some of the older writings and
prophets, and, as standing outside the current of tradition, with the aid
of inventive fancy ; even so, the traditional materials from which the picture
of the former is obtained, are not mere imaginations, and have not been
designedly distorted or changed contrary to their original intention. The
attempts made of late to figure the narrative in Chronicles, e.g., about the
beginning of David's reign, in details, as the result of a calculated selection
and manipulation of passages from the Book of Samuel — apart from the
craft and stupidity which this supposes, especially in one addressing himself
to readers of the Book of Samuel — leave on the mind the impression, not of
a judge, who seeks to secure that an accused person gets his rights, but
of a prosecuting attorney, who sees in every accidental trifle, a new proof of
an already presumed great crime." — "Chronik," in Hauck's Realencyk.
iv. p. 97.

CHAPTER XI
Hrcbajologg anb tbe ©lb Testament

" Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee."— Job.
" There have been made other and even greater discoveries in Assyrian
and Babylonian ruins since Botta's far-reaching exploration of the mounds of
Khorsabad, but there never has been aroused again such a deep and general
interest in the excavation of distant Oriental sites as towards the middle of
the last century, when Sargon's palace rose suddenly out of the ground, and
furnished the first faithful picture of a great epoch of art which had vanished
completely from human sight." — H. V. Hilphecht.
"The more I investigate Semitic antiquity, the more I am impressed
with the utter baselessness of the view of Wellhausen." — En. Hommkl.
"The result is sufficiently surprising; Meyer himself does not conceal
the fact. The documents preserved in the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah
are (substantially) genuine official documents, and the chronology of the
Chronicles is correct in every particular." — Prof. A. R. S. Kennedy, on
Ed. Meyer.
"The systematic historical description, the account of the wanderings
which is as exact geographically as it is historically, and in which we find a
number of small details that would have been valueless and unknown to
later writers, and above all else the accurate dating by the sacred lunar
periods of an early age, appear to demand as their eriginal basis the existence
of written documents contemporaneous with Moses himself." — Dr. Ditlef
Nielson (Danish archaeologist).

CHAPTER XI
ARCHEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
In the Wellhausen school, as we have seen, literary criticism
of the Old Testament came under the control of the history
of religion and institutions; contemporaneously, however,
with the development of this school, a new claimant to be
heard has put in its voice in the science of archaeology,
which bids fair, before long, to control both criticism and
history. It is its witness we are now to hear.
I. General Bearings of Modern ARCHiEOLOGiCAL
Discovery
Nothing in the whole course of last century is more
remarkable than the recovery of the knowledge of ancient
civilisations through the labours of explorers and the
successful decipherment of old inscriptions. The early part
of the century witnessed the recovery of the key to the
ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the middle and close of
the century saw the triumph of skill in penetrating the
secret of that equally strange and difficult system of writing
— the cuneiform.1 When in the palace of Assurbanipal at
Nineveh, brought to light by Sir Henry Layard,2 syllabaries
and other aids to the knowledge of the language were
obtained, rapid progress in the decipherment was assured.
Scholars are now struggling with imperfect means to
wrest their meaning from the puzzhng characters on the
Hittite monuments. Excavations in Crete are yield
ing new surprises, and carrying knowledge back to a
1 For a full and readable account of these decipherments see Vigouroux's
La Bible et les Dicouvertes Modernes, i. pp. 115-69 ; cf. Sayce, Fresh
Light from Ancient Monuments, chap. i. ; Hilprecht's Explorations, pp.
23 ff., 629 ff. etc.
3 See below, p. 399.

396 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
civihsation in its bloom in the second millennium before
Christ.1 Such discovery might conceivably have taken place, and
abundant light have been thrown on the arts, language,
institutions, and rehgions of such lost civihsations as those of
Babylonia, Assyria, and Egypt, and yet little direct illumina
tion have been shed on the Bible. It must be accounted a
wonderful providence of God that, at a time when so much
is being said and done to discredit the Old Testament, so
marvellous a series of discoveries, bearing directly on
matters contained in its pages, should have been made.
Few, indeed, who have not given the matter special study,
have any idea of how extensive are the points of contact
between these explorations and the Bible, and how manifold
are the corroborations of Scripture which they afford. In
this as in every new study, of course, there has been much
to unlearn as well as to learn. Many rash theories and
baseless conjectures have been propounded, and not a few
supports sought for the Bible have proved to be illusory.
But the area of positive knowledge has always been widen
ing, and there is to-day a mass of material available for the
illustration and confirmation of Holy Scripture for which we
cannot be sufficiently grateful.
Attempts are made, indeed, to minimise this signal con
tribution of archaeology to faith, and to turn its material
to uses hostile, -rather than helpful, to revealed rehgion.
Already a great change can be perceived in the attitude
and tactics of rationalistic critics in relation to these
discoveries. Formerly Israel was looked upon as a people
belonging to the dim dawn of history, at a period when,
except in Egypt, civihsation had hardly begun. It was
possible then to argue that the art of writing did not exist
among the Hebrews, and that they had not the capacity for
the exalted religious ideas which the narratives of their early
history imply. Moses could not have given the laws, nor
David have written the psalms, which the history ascribes
to them. This contention is now rendered impossible by
the discovery of the extraordinary light of civilisation which
shone in the Tigro-Euphrates valley, and in the valley of
the Nile, millenniums before Abraham left Ur of the
Chaldees, or Moses led his people out of Egypt- The
1 See The. Quarterly. Review,, Oct 1904, pp. 374 ff..

ARCHEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 397
transformation of opinion is revolutionary.1 The entire
perspective is altered, and it is felt that Israel is now rather
to be regarded as a people on whom the ends of the earth
had come in respect of civilisation. The world was already
old in the times of Jacob and Moses, and the tendency is
now to see in the religious ideas and institutions of Israel an
inheritance from Babylonia, and to bring in Babylonian
influences at the beginning of Israel's history, rather than
at its close. The gain is appreciable in the breaking up of
older critical theories, but the attempt to ignore the dis
tinctive features of the Bibhcal religion, and to resolve the
latter into a simple compound of the ideas of other religions,2
is bound to fail, and is being met with an effective protest
from critical scholars themselves.3
Unquestionably the most remarkable result that has
accrued from the discoveries in Egypt, Babylonia, and
Assyria, has been, as just said, the astonishing revolution
wrought in our views of the character and literary capabilities
of the most ancient civilisations. It had long been known
that Egypt was a literary country as early as, and far earlier
than, the time of Moses. Now that the books and monu
ments of that ancient people have been disinterred, and the
writing on them made intelligible, our wonder is tenfold
increased at the brilliance of their civilisation as far back as
the days of their earliest kings.4 Still more astonishing is
1 The effect has been most marked on archaeologists themselves. Sayce,
Hommel, Halevy, all formerly advocates of the critical view, have abandoned
it. Dr. Driver having stated that Hommel agreed with Wellhausen's
analysis of the Pentateuch (Expos. Times, Dec. 1896), Hommel replied (to
the late Professor Green) that the citation was from an earlier publication,
and that he no longer held these views, but was increasingly impressed with
" the utter baselessness " of the view of Wellhausen. It has been the same
with Professor Sayce. Halevy, at a meeting of the International Congress at
Paris in 1897, made a strong defence of the essential truth of the Mosaic
history, as against the Wellhausen school, with which he had been identified.
2 Thus Fried. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel ; Winckler, etc.
8 Cf. Budde, Das Alte Testament und Die Ausgrabungen (against
Winckler) ; Gunkel, Israel und Babylonien (against Fried. Delitzsch) ; and
the abundant literature called forth in the "Babel and Bible " controversy
(see below, p. 409).
4 See below, p. 418. The oldest known MS. in existence (dating from
twelfth dynasty) is that of the "Precepts of Ptah-hotep," a classical
Egyptian work of the fifth dynasty (c. 3000 B.C.). Ptah-hotep lived under
King Assa, was himself of royal descent (Brugsch thinks "the son of the
king"), and was very old when he wrote, but he appeals to the ancients.
Brugsch, Hist, of Egypt, i. pp. 92 ff. ; Renouf, Religion of Egypt, pp. 75,
100, etc.

398 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
the light cast by the monuments on the condition of ancient
Babylonia. Here, in the Hammurabi age — which is that of
Abraham — and long before, we find ourselves in the midst
of cities, books, and libraries ; of letters, arts, and laws, in a
high state of development; of a people among whom not
only a knowledge of letters existed, but a taste for books
and reading was widely diffused1 — in short of a highly
advanced and capable hterary people. Babylonia had by
this time its dynasties of great kings, some of whom were
distinguished as founders of libraries and patrons of letters.
Sargon I., e.g., whose date is usually put at 3800 B.C., founded
a famous library at Accad. The French excavator De
Sarzec brought to hght a few years since (1893-5) the
remains of a great library (30,000 tablets) at Tello, in S.
Babylonia, which already existed in the reign of Gudea,
about 2700 B.C.2 More recently the Pennsylvania explorers
have disinterred the temple library at Nippur, the ancient
Calneh. Not only so, but in excavating the foundations of
the temple, they came on the abundant remains of an older
civihsation, which, from the depth at which the relies were
found — 25 to 35 feet below the pavement of Sargon i. and
Naram-Sin — must, it is thought, be as old as 6000 or 7000
years B.c.8 Even if less time should suffice, their antiquity
is still immensely remote.
It is beyond our province to enter minutely into what
may be called the romance of the rediscovery of ancient
Nineveh and Babylon ; but one illustration may bring out
how from the first light has been shed on the Bible by
exploration. In 1843, Emil Botta, French Consul in the
district, struck into the mounds of Khorsabad, a httle to the
north of Nineveh, and soon, to his own surprise, was standing
in the midst of an immense palace, which proved to be that
of Sargon, the conqueror of Samaria. This was a remarkable
discovery. In Isa. xx. 1, we read that "Sargon, king of
1 It has been argued that reading and writing were probably confined to
the upper and official classes. The extent and variety of the literature,
the fact of published laws, and the use of writing in business (banking
accounts, etc.), above all, the lesson and exercise books of young pupils,
point to a different conclusion ; cf. Hilprecht, Explorations, p. 405 : " found
them to be the school exercises of a Babylonian child living in the fifth pre-
Christian millennium " (at Nippur) ; pp. 525 ff.
3 Some of these tablets are older than 4000 B.o. ; cf. Hilprecht,
Explorations, p. 249.
8 Cf. Hilprecht, pp. 391 ff., 542 ff. ; Peters, Nippur, ii. pp. 246 ff.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 399
Assyria, sent his Tartan (or commander-in-chief) to besiege
Ashdod." But who was Sargon ? This is the only place in
which his name occurs in Scripture, or in all literature.
Ancient writers knew nothing of him. He was a mystery :
some did not hesitate to deny that he ever existed. Yet
the first important discovery made was the palace of this
very Sargon.1 It contained his name and portrait ; its walls
were covered with his sculptures and inscriptions. Sargon,
after being forgotten for twenty-five centuries, is now again
one of the best known kings of Assyria. He was the
father of Sennacherib. His annals recount the siege of
Ashdod mentioned in Isaiah. This first discovery was
followed by others not leBS brilliant. In 1847 Mr. Layard
began work at the mounds of Nimroud and Kouyunjik — the
site of Nineveh itself. At the former place he unearthed
four large palaces, and at the latter, the palace of Sennacherib,
rebuilt by his grandson Assurbanipal, in the de~bris of which
were found the remains of the richly-stored library already
referred to.2
IL Babylonian Legends and the early Chapters
of Genesis
, Beginning with the origins, a first question we naturally
ask is — Do the early chapters of Genesis really preserve for us
the oldest traditions of our race ? There are two reasons
entitling us to look with some confidence for an answer to
this question to Babylonia. The first is, that in Babylonia
we are already far back into the times to which these
traditions relate; and the second is, that these traditions
themselves point to Babylonia as their seat and centre.
Eden was in Babylonia, as shown by its rivers Euphrates
and Tigris; the land of Nod, to which Cain and his
posterity betook themselves, was to the east of Babylonia ; 8
the ark was built in Babylonia, and it was on one of the
mountains N. or N.E. of Babylonia that it ultimately
rested ; from the plain of Shinar (Sumir) in Babylonia was
the earth repeopled. If, therefore, the oldest traditions of
1 Cf. George Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 2 ff. ; Hilprecht,
Explorations, pp. 76, 84 ff.
2 Assyrian Discoveries, pp. 4, 101, 144 ff., 418, 452 ; Hilprecht, pp.
104 ff.
8 Gen. iv. 16.

4oo ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
the race lingered anywhere, it should be in Babylonia.
And now that we have in our hands the records of that
ancient people, dating back to very early times, it is
possible to compare the Bible traditions with them, and see
now far they correspond. It may be claimed that the
tablets and inscriptions which have been deciphered do show
that the first chapters of Genesis are indeed what we have
assumed them to be — a record of the very oldest traditions
of our race. We shall look first at the facts, then at the
explanation. 1. Though out of chronological order, we may begin
with a statement in that old and much-discussed chapter in
Genesis — the account in chap. x. of the divisions of men after
the flood. This " table of nations," as it is called, we look
on as one of the oldest and most precious documents of
its kind in existence.1 In vers. 8-12 of this chapter we
read : " Cush begat Nimrod : he began to be a mighty one
in the earth. . . . And the beginning of his kingdom
was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of
Shinar. Out of that land he went forth into Assyria [or,
went forth Asshur] and builded Nineveh, and Rehoboth-Ir,
and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah : the
same is the great city." The very names of these cities take
us back into the midst of the ancient Babylonia unearthed
by exploration. But more particularly, the passage makes
three statements of the first importance. It affirms (1) that
Babel and the other cities named existed before Nineveh ;
(2) that Assyria was colonised from Babylonia ; and (3) that
the founder of Babylonian civilisation was not a Semite,
but a Cushite — a descendant of Ham.2 Each of these
statements, till the time of the Assyrian discoveries, was
confidently disputed. The received tradition put Nineveh
before Babylon,3 and the Babylonians, like the Assyrians,
were held to be Semites. The monuments, however,
confirm the Bible in all three points.4 It is no longer
'Kautzsch says: "The so-called table of nations remains according
to all results of monumental exploration, an ethnographic original
document of the first rank, which nothing can replace." — Die Bleibende
Bedeutung des Alttestaments, p. 17. On critical questions, see above, p. 351.
2 Cf. G. Rawlinson, Hist. Illustrations of the O.T., pp. 29 ff.
3 The authority for this was the fable of Semiramis in Ctesias, reported
by Diodorus Siculus (ii. 1-20).
4 Cf. Schrader, Cun. Inseripts. i. p. 76, on Gen. x. 10: "This coincides

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 401
questioned that the Babylonian kingdoms were the older 1
— the antiquity ascribed to some of their cities (e.g., to
Nippur = Calneh) is almost fabulous. It is no longer
doubted that Assyrian civilisation was derived from
Babylonia.2 Strangest of all, it is now known (for though
there are rival theories, we state correctly the prevailing
view),3 that the founders of the Babylonian civihsation, the
inventors of its alphabet, laws, arts, the founders of its
libraries, were not Semites, but people of a different
stock — Turanian or Hamitic (the Accadians).4
Another instance may be given from this chapter. In
ver. 22 Elam is mentioned as the oldest son of Shem. But
the Elam of history was not Semitic, but Aryan. On the
ground of its language even Hommel wrote recently : " The
Elam mentioned here as one of the sons of Shem cannot
with all that we otherwise know respecting the relation of Assyria to
Babylonia," etc.
1 The first Babylonian dynasty, that to which Hammurabi belonged,
began about 2200 B.C. (some date it a century or two earlier), but the city
of Babel is of unknown antiquity. A recent writer says: "The oldest
history of Babylon is still unknown. ... It is certain that Sargon
(3800 B. c. ) raised Babylon to a leading position. From this time Babylon
forms with Borsippa a double city." — Jeremias, Das A.T. im Lichte des
alien. Orients, p. 160. The antiquity of Erech, Accad, Calneh, is very
great. Inscriptions of kings of Erech, Lagash, and other places, were
found at Nippur of a date as early as 4000 B.c. (Peters, Nippur, ii.
p. 160). 3 The Assyrian Nineveh (for there seems to have been a Babylonian city
of the same name) is likewise old. An inscription of Dungi, the second
king of Ur (c. 2700 B.C.), has been found in it (Jeremias, p. 165). Cf.
McCurdy, History, Prophecy, and the Monuments, i. p. 63 : "Before the
union [of Babylonian kingdoms] was effected, emigrants from among those
Babylonians settled along the Middle Tigris, founded the city of Asshur,
and later still the group of cities known to history as Nineveh."
8 See for counter view, art. "Accad," in Diet, of Bible, i. p. 21, with
qualifying editorial note.
4 Gunkel says : " But the centre of the Orient is Babylonia : there from
an unthought-of antiquity has flourished an amazingly high culture, which
already about 3000 B.C. stands in full bloom : this culture originates from a
non-Semitic people, whom we name Sumerian, and is then taken over and
carried forward by Semitic emigrants." — Israel und Bdbylonien, p. 6.
(Continental scholars generally speak of " Sumerian," English writers of
" Accadian.") Pinches says : " During the period immediately preceding that of the
dynasty of Babylon there is a gap in the list of kings, which fresh excava
tions alone can fill up. Before this gap, the records, so far as we know
them, are in the Akkadian language. After this gap they are in the
Semitic-Babylonian tongue." — O.T. in Light of Hist. Records, etc., p. 152.
See now, however, Jeremias on the discoveries at Lagash and Nippur
(p. 2). 26

402 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
possibly be identical with Elam proper."1 The work of
exploration of the French expedition at Susa, the capital of
Elam, has, however, resulted in the remarkable discovery of a
civihsation older than any yet known in this region. More
striking still, it is found that the inscriptions on the oldest
bricks are written in cuneiform characters, and not in the
language of later Elam, but either in Semitic Babylonian, or
in Accadian. Thus Elam is proved to be, after all, " the son
of Shem."2 A still wider result from these explorations, in their
bearings on our subject, is the growing conviction that " the
plain of Shinar" (chap, xi.), or Southern Babylonia, was
really the centre of distribution of the families of mankind.
Babylonian civihsation is carried back by the discoveries at
Nippur to a period so much earlier than that of any other
known civihsation, that the inference seems irresistible that
it is the source from which these other civihsations are
derived. It has been seen that this is true of Assyria. It
is beginning to be assumed by leading Egyptologists that
the same is true of Egypt.8 Learned books have been
written to show that it is true of China.4 Probably it will
be found to be true of Crete, etc. The Biblical account of
these matters, in short, is found to rest on far older and
more accurate information than that possessed by any
scholars prior to the new discoveries.
2. The stories of the Creation and the Flood in Genesis
have been so often compared with the corresponding
Babylonian legends that it is hardly necessary to bestow much
space upon them. Among the tablets found in Assurbanipal's
palace were some which proved on examination to contain
1 Ancient Heb. Tradition, p. 294.
2 Dr. Driver says in his Genesis, in loc. : " It is true inscriptions recently
discovered seem to have shown that in very early times Elam was peopled
by Semites . . . but the fact is not one which the writer of this verse is
likely to have known " (p. 128). The curious fact is, however, that he did
know it, while modern scholars did not. Is it not more likely that Dr.
Driver's theory of the writer's age, and of the extent of his knowledge, is
wrong 1
For further illustration, see Note A on Ethnological Relations in Gen. x.
8 Cf. art. "Egypt," in Diet, of Bible i. p. 656 ; Budge, Hist, of Egypt,
i. pp. 39-48 ; Sayce, Early Israel, p. 155 ; Nicol, Recent Arehceology and the
Bible, pp. 92, 819 ; art. in New York Independent (1897) on discoveries and
views of De Sarzec, Mauss, etc.
4 See an interesting article in Quarterly Review, July, 1882 ; Boscawen,
Chambers's Journal, July 1896 ; 0. J. Ball, in Pinches, p. 121.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 403
an account of creation, resembling in certain of its features
the narrative in Gen. i. The contrasts, indeed, are much
more apparent than the hkeness.1 The Babylonian story is
debased throughout by polytheism — begins, in fact, by
recounting the birth of the great gods from the chaotic
ocean. This is followed by a long mythological description,
abounding in repetition, of the war of Merodach (god of
light) with Tiamat (the primeval ocean), the conflict issuing
in the woman being cut in two, and heaven being formed
of one half, and earth of the other. The order of the
creative works, however, seems to bear some resemblance to
that in Gen. i. The fifth tablet narrates the appointing of.
the constellations, and another fragment the making of the
animals. A trace of an older conception may, perhaps, be
discerned in the fact that in the latter (if it really belongs
to the same series, which is doubtful) the work of creation
is ascribed, not to Merodach, but to " all the gods " together,
thus: " When all the gods had made (the world),
Had created the heavens, had formed (the earth),
Had brought forth living creatures into being,
The cattle of the field, the (beasts) of the field, and
The creeping things (of the field)."8
Inscriptions show that both Babylonians and Assyrians
had a species of seventh-day sabbath. The word sabattu
itself occurs, and is defined as " a day of rest for the heart." 3
It differed, however, from the Jewish sabbath, in that the
reckoning began afresh each month— 7th, 14th, 21st, 28th, —
while the Jewish went on consecutively. On it ordinary
works were prohibited, at least to king and high officiate.4
1 These are acknowledged by nearly every writer. Gunkel says : "Any
one who compares this ancient Babylonian myth with Gen. i. will perceive
at first hardly anything else than the infinite distance between them ; there,
the heathen gods, inflamed against each other in wild warfare, here the One,
who speaks and it is done." — Israel und Babylonien, p. 24 ; cf. Genesis, pp.
113, 118 ; Oettli, Der Kampf um Bibel und Babel, pp. 9 ff. There is
another ancient Babylonian legend of creation which has greater affinity to
the Jehovistio account in Genesis (chap. ii.). Cf. Pinches, as above, pp.
89 ff. etc.
2 King, Bab. Religion, p. 81.
8 It seems forced, despite parallels, to explain this as a day when the gods
rested from anger, i.e., a day of propitiation (Jastrow, Driver, etc.).
4 Difficulties arise from the fact that the word sabattu is not expressly
applied to the seventh days, and that the prohibitions of work mention
only king, augur, physician. There seems little doubt, however, that

404 ARCHEOLOGY AND- THE OLD TESTAMENT
Abundant material exists for the illustration of the
narrative of Paradise. On the other hand, no clear account
of the fall of man has yet been recovered. But that the
Babylonians had some story resembhng that in Gen. hi. is
rendered probable by the representation on an ancient seal
in which a man and a woman are depicted as seated on
either side of a tree, and reaching out their hands to pluck
the fruit, while behind the woman a serpent rears itself, and
appears to whisper in her ear. Scholars are divided in
opinion as to the identification;1 but to most people the
picture will seem to speak for itself.
No doubt, at least, can rest on the parallelism between
the Biblical and the Babylonian stories of the Deluge. The
Babylonian story, inserted as an episode in a longer epic
poem, must be older than the latter ; we may safely place it
as early as 3000 B.c. Though defaced, like the creation
story, by a gross polytheism,2 it presents in its general
structure, and in many of its details, a striking resemblance
to the account in Genesis. It relates, in brief, how the
Babylonian Noah8 was commanded to build a ship for
the above-mentioned days, with some others, fall under the category of
" sabbaths," and possibly the prohibition of work is intended to be general.
Cf. Gunkel, Genesis, pp. 106 ff. ; Israel und Bab. pp. 27, 28 ; Jeremias, as
above, pp. 86 ff. ; Driver, Genesis, p. 34, and art. "Sabbath" in Diet, of
Bible, iv. p. 319 ; Schrader, Sayce, etc. Gunkel says : " Name and
institution of the sabbath are quite surely of Babylonian origin " (p. 108).
The narrative in Exodus assumes the sabbath to be already known to the
Israelites (Ex, xvi. 22-30) ; and in Gen. ii. 3 ; Ex. xx. 11, its appointment
is traced back to the creation. [See Note at end of Chapter.]
1 The male figure is horned, which some take to be a sign of divinity ;
but this is questioned. Cf. Pinches, as above, p. 79. Schrader, Budde,
Kittel, Gunkel, Jeremias, Driver, etc., declare the interpretation doubtful.
G. Smith, Sayce, E. Delitzsch, and many others, uphold it.
2 The contrast is again emphasised by Gunkel, as by other writers.
Gunkel says: "The polytheism which obtrudes itself in the Babylonian
tradition in the strongest way has in the Israelitish wholly disappeared.
' The gods of the Babylonian story are genuinely heathenish in their lying
and sanction of lying, in their greed at the sacrifice, in their actions, in their
caprice, in their dealings with men, and in the alternation of their humours.
How far removed from this is the God who permits a judgment to come on
men in His righteousness, who must justify Himself to man's conscience ! '
(Holzinger). The last point is specially very important ; of the profound
knowledge of sin with which the Hebrew bows before God there is not a
trace in the Babylonian story." — Genesis, p. 66.
8 The name is variously given as Par-napishtim, Pir-napistim, Ut-
napishtim, or in its Greek form Xisuthros. The last is a form of the name
Atea-hasis ( = very clever), also given to the hero. The full account may be
seen in Sayce (Higher Criticism, and Early Israel) ; Pinches, as above ;
Driver's Genesis, pp. 104-6, etc.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 405
the saving of himself and of the seed of life of every sort ;
how, when the ship was built and smeared with bitumen,
he took into it his household and the animals (the sun-god
Samas commands: "Enter into thy ship, and close thy
door"); how the flood came and destroyed mankind; how
the ship rested on the mountain Nizir (E. of Tigris) ; how
after seven days he sent forth in succession a dove, a
swallow, and a raven, the last of which did not return ; how
he then sent forth the animals, and offered a sacrifice, to
which the gods " gathered like flies " ; how the bow was set
in the heaven (?), etc. The hero is ultimately, like Enoch,
translated to the abode of the gods without dying. It was
before mentioned that the parallel with the Babylonian
story requires for its completeness both the Elohistic and
the Jehovistic narratives in Genesis — a fact with important
bearings on the critical analysis.1
3. There can be no dispute, therefore, as to the close
relationship of the old Babylonian traditions with the early
narratives in Genesis,2 the question which remains is, How
are these similarities to be explained ?
(1) The favourite hypothesis in critical circles up to the
present is that of borrowing on the part of the Israelites from
the Babylonians ; and, as the Babylonians are undeniably the
older people, this view may seem to have much to commend it.
The Biblical writers, it is thought, or, before them, the nation,
adopted the legends in question, purifying them, perhaps
gradually, from polytheistic elements, and making them
the vehicles of the purer ideas of their own religion. Then
the further question arises — At what period did this borrow
ing take place ? and here we encounter wide divergences
of opinion. In accordance with the date they assign to the
Priestly Writing, the tendency in the Wellhausen school
is to represent it as taking place in the exile, or later.3
To this view, however, an increasing band of scholars, largely
influenced by archaeology, raise objections which seem in-
1 See above, p. 348.
2 Cheyne says that " a particular critical theory, viz., that the narrative
in Gen. i. is the product of the reflection of a late priestly writer, is no doubt
refuted." (He refers to Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 298.)— Oxford
Hexateuch, i. p. 165.
3 Gunkel says : "It suits the peculiar tendency of modern Old Testament
science to place this borrowing, assuming it conceded, as late as possible. "—
Genesis, p. 117.

406 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
superable.1 How extremely improbable that any Israehte,
of the time of the exile, should dream of taking over these
grossly polytheistic stories from a heathen people, and of
placing them, in purified form, in the forefront of his Book
of the Law ! * The purification itself, assuming it to have
taken place, is not so easy a task as is supposed, and can
only be thought of as a long process.8 The same objection,
nearly, applies to the borrowing of the Babylonian myths
in the age of Ahaz, or in the reign of Solomon. A new vista
of possibility, however, opens itself with the Tel el-Amarna
discoveries — on which more below — which show Canaan
to have been, in the fifteenth century B.C., penetrated with
Babylonian influences and culture. May we not assume
that the Israelites borrowed these legends, with other
elements of their civihsation, from the Canaanites, after
they had come into possession of the land ? 4 To anyone
who retains the least faith in the Biblical picture of the
Mosaic age, or of the relations of the Israelites and
Canaanites after the conquest, the improbability of such
borrowing will appear as great as in the exilian theory.
This is the difficulty of the " process " — how is it to get a
start? For at some point the legends must have been
taken over in their grossly polytheistic form : nay, must
long have retained that form in the bosom of Jehovah-
worshipping Israel.6 Is this hkely, or is there any proof
1 Thus Schrader, Gunkel, Winckler, Zimmern, Oettli, Kittel, eto.
3 Cf. Gunkel, Genesis, p. 117.
* Ibid. p. 118: "The two recensions (of the creation story) are so
immensely different, that we must necessarily assume a long history and a
great length of time for the mythological so entirely to vanish and the
Babylonian to become so completely Israelitised." Kittel says: "There can
be no question that such a rejection or complete transformation of mytho
logical ideas would involve a far more pregnant and original act of genius
than that involved in their first conception." — Bib. Excavs. p. 45. Cf. Driver,
Authority and Archaeology, p. 15: "It is incredible that the monotheistic
author of Gen. i., at whatever date he lived, could have borrowed any detail,
however slight, from the crassly polytheistio epic of the conflict of Marduk
and Tiamat : the Babylonian myth must have been for long years trans
planted into Israel, it must there have been gradually divested of its
polytheistic features," etc.
4 This is the view favoured by Gunkel (Genesis, pp. 68, 118), Sayce,
Winckler, eto.
* Dr. Driver truly says that this view " is consistent only with a critical
theory of the authorship of the Pentateuch, not with the traditional view,"
for that Moses, who "set his face sternly and consistently against all inter
course with the Canaanites, and all compromises with polytheism, should
have gone to Canaan for his cosmogony, is in the last degree improbable "

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 407
of it ? There is one other possibility — that the Hebrews
brought these traditions with them in their original migration
from Ur of the Chaldees.1 But once this is admitted, we
come in sight of an alternative hypothesis, on which some
thing will immediately be said.
An objection urged to this view of the antiquity of the
Biblical traditions is the absence of all allusions to them in
the pre-exilian writings. '' With regard both to the Creation
and to the Deluge stories," says Dr. Cheyne, " if they were
in circulation in early pre-exihc times, it is difficult to
understand the absence of any direct allusion to them in
the undoubted pre-exilic writings."2 This is once more
the argument from silence, so often shown to be incon
clusive.3 But the argument in this case proves too much :
the silence, besides, is not so complete as the objection
represents. The Deluge is part of the Jehovistic story,
which most critics place in the ninth or eighth century B.C.
It is referred to also, as before shown,4 in Isa. liv. 9, in a
way which implies pre-exilian knowledge. The creation
narrative, again, forms the basis of the Fourth Commandment
in Ex. xx. 11 ; seems alluded to in Deut. iv. 32 ; and is the
foundation of Ps. vhi. and civ. To put all these references and
psalms late because Gen. i. is assumed to be post-exilian, is
to beg the question.
(2) We do not say that the hypothesis of the borrowing
of Babylonian myths, and of their purification by the spirit
(Authority and Archaeology, p. 16). But putting traditional views aside,
does Dr. Driver think that the Mosaic religion at any time sanctioned
intercourse with the Canaanites or "compromises with polytheism"? If
not, what becomes of his own view that "the cosmogony of Gen. i. pre
supposes a long period of naturalisation in Israel, during which the old
legend was stripped of its pagan deformities" (p. 17). How was the
naturalisation of the pagan myth effected?
1 This is the view of Schrader and others. (See below). "I am led,"
says this scholar, "to the obvious conclusion that the Hebrews were
acquainted with this (flood) legend at a much earlier period, and that it
is far from impossible that they acquired a knowledge of these and the
other primitive myths now under investigation as far back as in the time
of their primitive settlements in Babylonia, and that they carried these
stories with them from Ur of the Chaldees."— Cuneiform Inscriptions, i.
p. 54. 2 Oxf. Hexateuch, p. 166 : so P. Delitzsch and others.
8 Gunkel says: "That the legend of the flood is mentioned so late in
the part of the literature preserved to us proves nothing at all."— Genesis,
p. 67. 4 See above, p. 374.

408 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
of revelation in Israel, in such wise that they become the
vehicles of higher teaching, is abstractly inadmissible ; but
we do not think it is the conclusion which most naturally
follows from the comparison of the Biblical and Babylonian
stories. The former, it is allowed, possess a character of
sobriety, monotheistic elevation, and purity of religious and
ethical conception, altogether absent from the latter; the
contrasts vastly overbear the resemblances ; and it is_ hard
to understand how, from legends so debased, and foreign to
the whole genius of the Israelitish religion, could arise the
noble products of a purer faith which we have in our Bible.1
The differences are so great as to lead many scholars to
seek the explanation of the resemblance along another line
altogether — in a relation of cognateness, rather than one of
derivation.2 On this view, the Biblical stories are not late
and purified versions of the Babylonian, but represent an
independent related version, going back to a common origin
with the Babylonian, but preserving their monotheistic
character in the line of revelation, when the others had
long sunk under the corrupting influences of polytheism.
Or, if purification is to be spoken of, it is purification on
the basis of an older and less debased tradition. Such a
view harmonises with the Bible's own postulate that the
light of a true knowledge of God has never been whoUy
extinguished among men, and that from the first there has
been a line of pious worshippers, a seed of blessing and
promise, on the earth.
(3) In the discussions which have arisen on the connection
of Israel with Babylonia, it is not surprising that attention
should latterly have become focussed on the question of how
far the old Babylonian religion, among its other elements,
included a monotheistic strain, and whether it is from this
source that Israel derived its monotheistic conception.
This is the question peculiarly agitated in what — from the
title of the lecture of Fried. Delitzsch which inaugurated it
1 " These differences," says Kittel, "show that we are on entirely different
ground, and that even in instances where the words may be the same,
another and altogether different spirit breathes in them. We are in a sphere
differing loto coelo from that of Babylon — it is quite a different world ; there
it is the sphere of a heathen nature-worship, with all its concomitants,
here it is that of a revealed and monotheistic religion." — Bib. Excavs. p. 42.
2 Thus Dillmann, Kittel, Hommel, Oettli, etc. See their views in Note
B on the Cognateness of Babylonian and Hebrew Traditions.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 409
— has been called the "Babel and Bible" controversy.1
The truth, it seems to us, hes midway between those who
affirm, and those who deny, a monotheistic substratum in
the Babylonian religion.2 That Israel borrowed its idea
of the one God from this source is another matter. The
name JA'U — corresponding with Yahweh — may or may
not be found, as alleged, on tablets of the Hammurabi age.
Reading and meaning of the inscriptions are still under
discussion.3 But this, though interesting in its bearings
on the age of the name, proves nothing as to its Babylonian
origin. F. Delitzsch himself does not take it to be a native
Babylonian name of God.4
III. The Abb a ha mic Age — the Chedorlaomer
Expedition
Archaeology throws new and valuable light upon the
patriarchal age. The patriarchs themselves, whom it was
proposed to resolve into tribal personifications, are found to
bear personal names with which their age was perfectly
familiar. A name Abe-ramu, almost the same as Abraham,
appears on a contract-tablet of the second reign before
Hammurabi.6 Other contract-tablets of that age exhibit
1 Fried. Delitzsch in this lecture argues that Israel owes its monotheistic
conception, and the name Yahweh, to Babylonia. — Babel und Bibel, pp. 59 ff.
2 See above, p. 128. Winckler does not inexactly express the matter
when he says: "The character of the Babylonian religion reveals itself at
the first glance. It is a star-religion— moon, sun, and stars play in it the
chief rile. But it would be to mistake its essence to suppose that in the
doctrine the heavenly bodies were the Godhead itself. The stars are rather
in the Babylonian doctrine only the chiefest revelation of the divine Power ;
that revelation in which its rule and designs can be most clearly observed.
For the rest, all being, all that is visible or invisible, is in the same way an
emanation or part of the divine essence. There are many, nay numberless
gods ; but they are only revelation-forms of the one great divine might,"
etc.— Die Babylon. Kultwr, p. 19 (slightly abridged).
3 F. Delitzsch, Hommel, Sayce, Pinches, etc., uphold the reading ; Konig
(Bibel und Babel, pp. 45 ff.) contests it ; Jeremias (Das A. T. im Lichte des
Alt. Orients, p. 211) agrees with Hommel. Zimmern, and most others,
as Budde, Gunkel, Oettli, Kittel, either reject the reading, or regard it as
extremely questionable.
4 Driver also says : " The names [viz., those containing this element] are
not Babylonian, and must therefore have belonged to foreigners — whether
Canaanites, or ancestors of the Hebrews." — Genesis, p. xlix.
5 Cf. Pinches, O.T. in Light of Hist. Records, p. 148. Abu-ramu (Abram)
was the name of an Assyrian official in the reign of Esarhaddon-(£Sjtf.). It
may be noticed that "the field of Abram" has been deciphered on a
monument of Shishak (Pal. Explor. Quart. Statement, Jan. 1905, p. 7).

410 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
the names Jacob and Jacob-el.1 The names Jacob-el and
Joseph-el appear on a monument of Thothmes HI. of Egypt
(about 1500 B.c) as place-names in Palestine. In other
ways the whole period has been lifted up into new and
commanding importance. It is generally accepted that
the Hammurabi of the inscriptions is no other than the
Amraphel of Gen. xiv. 1 ; and the discovery of the Code of
this able ruler has given his name an Mat it can never
again lose.2 The discovery was made at Susa in Jan. 1902,
and the Code itself, the most complete and finished of any
in antiquity, shows the height of civilisation to which the
Babylonia of Abraham's day had attained.8 The discovery
bears directly on the possibility of such codes of law as we
find attributed to Moses in the Pentateuch — e.g., the Code
in the Book of the Covenant, — and particular provisions
prove the minute fidelity with which the patriarchal history
reflects the customs of that early time. Such, as formerly
shown,4 is the law providing that the childless wife may
give her maid to be a concubine ; and directing what is to
be done should the woman afterwards have a dispute with
her mistress because she has borne children ! 6
One of the most striking instances of the confirmation
of the historical accuracy of the patriarchal narratives is
that connected with the expedition of Chedorlaomer in
Gen. xiv. The events recorded in this chapter are very
remote, going back, most probably, to about 2100 b.c6 The
1 Johns, Deeds and Documents, pp. 164, 167. Kittel says: "We now
know that in ancient times Jacob was an ordinary personal name, and
nothing more." — Bab. Excavs. p. 31.
2 Cf. art. by C. W. H. Johns on " Code of Hammurabi " in Diet, of
Bible (Extra Vol.) ; or his Oldest Code of Laws in the World. Gunkel says :
"And this law was codified about 2200 B.C.; it originates from a time one
thousand years before there was any people of Israel. It is removed, from
Moses as far as we are from Charlemagne I " — Israel umd Bab. p. 7 (the
interval was probably less — see below).
8 Sayce goes so far as to say that the Babylonia of the age of Abraham
"was a more highly educated country than the England of George m." —
Monument Facts, p. 35.
4 See above, p. 115. 8 Cf. Code, arts. 145, 146, etc.
6 On the uncertainties of the chronology, see Hommel, Ancient Heb. Trad.
pp. 120 ff. Two data are important. An inscription of Assurbanipal states
that the conquest of Babylonia by the Elamites happened one thousand six
hundred and thirty-five years before his own conquest of Elam, or in 2280 B. o.
How long the Elamitic rule lasted we cannot tell, but Chedorlaomer was the
last representative of it. More definitely, Nabonidus states that Burnaburias
restored the temple of the sun at Larsa seven hundred years after Hammu-

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 411
historical relations also are intricate, and in part singular.
They are such as floating tradition could neither have in
vented nor preserved. It is implied in the story that a
king of Elam, Chedorlaomer (a strange name), at that time
held sovereignty over Babylonia; that, with the vassal
kings, whose names are given, he made an expedition against
Palestine ; that a second expedition was undertaken fourteen
years later to crush rebellion. The chapter further tells
how Lot was carried away prisoner, and how Abraham
organised a pursuit, and rescued him. The historical
character of this narrative was widely discredited — as by
Noldeke.1 How could a late Israelitish writer possibly
know of such events ? How could such an expedition take
place ? How could such a rescue be effected ? The story
was declared to be a complete fiction. Strange as it is,
however, it has now, as respects its historical framework,
been singularly confirmed. It has been established by
indubitable evidence that Babylonia was at this time under
Elamitic suzerainty; we have even the name and date (c.
2280 B.c) of the king who overran it. It was found, further,
that the known names of the kings of this Elamitic dynasty
began with the word "Kudur," meaning "servant" — thus
Kudur-Nankhundi, Kudur-Mabug. It was discovered that
there was an Elamitic goddess named " Lagamar," so that
Kudur-Lagamar (Chedorlaomer) was a name of genuine
Elamitic formation. It was found that these kings claimed
sovereignty over " Martu " (the west), or Palestine. It was
ascertained that Kudur-Mabug had a son — Eri-aku (also
called Rim-sin), king of Larsa : there can be little doubt, the
Arioch of Ellasar of this chapter. Amraphel was identified
with Hammurabi2 Finally, it was announced that the
rabi. The date of the king referred to (cf. Hommel, art. "Babylonia,"
Diet, of Bible, i. p. 224) is about 1400 B.C., which yields 2100 B.C. for
Hammurabi, the Amraphel of this expedition.
1 Wellhausen speaks of faith in the historicity of this narrative as having
received its "deathblow" from Noldeke, and pronounces Nbldeke's
criticism to be " unshaken.and unanswerable " (Compos, d. Hex. pp. 311-12).
On earlier attacks on the historicity, see Dillmann, Genesis, ii. pp. 82-33,
and Delitzsch, Genesis, i. pp. 396-98.
2 For details, reference may be made to Schrader, i. pp. 120 ff. ; and
specially ii. pp. 296 ff. ; and to the works of Sayce, Hommel, Pinches,
Driver, Gunkel, Kittel, Jeremias, etc. Gunkel says : " A narrative which
knows how to speak of so many very ancient names and relations makes first
the impression of the highest antiquity. For very ancient also, so far as we
can see, are ftjl the following names (in vers. 1 ff.) : they are almost entirely

412 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
name of Chedorlaomer himself had been found on a late
inscription. The identification is questioned, and we need
not press it ; but it is significant that three leading speciahsts,
Dr. Pinches (the discoverer), Professor Hommel, and
Professor Sayce, still express themselves satisfied of the
correctness of the reading.1 In any case, it seems abun
dantly made out that the author of this chapter is not
romancing, but writes with a clear knowledge of the
historical conditions of the times to which his narrative
relates. For the rest, the Tel el-Amarna tablets testify to
TJru-Salim as an ancient Canaanitish name for Jerusalem,
and even Gunkel is disposed to accept Melchizedek as an
historical person.2
All this, it is now to be owned, makes not the slightest
impression on most of the critics. Even Dr. Driver can
write : " Monumental evidence that the narrative is historical
is at present entirely lacking."8 It does not matter that
the historical setting of the story — even in the points
that were formerly challenged — is proved to be surprisingly
correct ; it is held sufficient to reply that there has not been
found on the monuments any direct mention of Abraham
and his rescue of Lot. As if this had ever been claimed, or
was a reasonable thing to expect. What is claimed is, that
the writer of this chapter is proved to have his feet on firm
historical ground in these remote times; that he knows
what he is writing about, and is not romancing ; and that,
when we find his narrative trustworthy in a multitude of
difficult points where we can test it, we are entitled to give
him credit for like fidelity in the parts we cannot test. This
would seem to be the common-sense way of looking at the
matter ; yet the critics prefer to beheve that the chapter is
an " unhistorical Midrash " of the time of the exile, or later,
names of peoples and cities which in the time of Israel had long absolutely
disappeared, and which the author needs to explain by glosses to his con
temporaries." — Genesis, p. 256. He combats the post-exilian origin of the
story (p. 263). .
1 See their respective works. Professor Sayce, in a personal communica
tion, June 10, 1902, says : " Hommel, Pinches, and myself still adhere to
the reading of the name of Chedorlaomer in a tablet discovered by Mr.
Pinches." 2 Genesis, pp. 261-62 ; cf. Jeremias, ut supra, p. 218.
8 Genesis, p. 172. Dr. Driver will only go so far as to concede that
"the outline of the narrative may still be historical." Cf. also Authority
and Archaeology, pp. 44, 45.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 413
drawn up by someone who had chanced to fall in with a
fragment of old Babylonian history, and pleased himself by
weaving into it these traditions or fables of Abraham and
Lot ! x How interesting the combination of accurate archaeo
logist and romancing fabulist which this theory presents ! —
a theory for which, we are justified in affirming, there is
wo evidence whatever, and which is opposed to every con
sideration of probability. One feels, in reading the narrative,
that it is of a piece throughout in its archaic character, and
must be taken as a whole, or left as a whole.2 As Hommel
well remarks : " Even assuming Gen. xiv. to be nothing
more than a very late narrative of a Midrash character,
belonging to post-exilic times, how came its author to
introduce into it a whole host of ancient phrases and names,
to which he himself is obliged to add explanatory glosses, in
order that they may be better understood ? . . . Are we to
assume that he did this intentionally in order to invest his
story with an air of greater antiquity ? In that case, all we
can say is, that no similar example of hterary finesse can be
found throughout the whole of the Old Testament."3 It
need not be added that many critics of more positive
tendency put much greater value on the narrative, and
ably defend its historicity.4 IV. Joseph in Egypt
With Abraham first, and afterwards with Joseph, the
patriarchal history quits Canaan, and transports us into
the midst of Egypt. Abraham went down to Egypt to
escape famine, and was there received with honour by the
reigning Pharaoh;6 but it is with the history of Joseph
that we pass definitely into the full blaze of Egyptian
civihsation. On the remarkable fidelity of the Egyptian
1 See Note 0 on the Alleged Midrash character of Gen. xiv.
2 Kuenen, who holds the chapter to be a post-exilian Midrash, still
allows that "the story is in its proper place, for it presupposes Lot's
separation from Abram, and his settlement in Sodom."— Hex. p. 143 (cf.
p. 324). 8 Ancient Heb. Trad. pp. 163-64.
4 See the defence of the historicity in Dillmann, Genesis, ii. pp. 32-33.
Delitzsch, i. pp. 396-98 ; Kittel, Hist, of Hebrews, i. pp. 175 ff. (with con
cession of revisions). So Konig, Klostermann, etc. Cf. also Tomkins,
Abraham and His Age (1897), chap. xiii.
8 Gen. xii. On the Egyptian relations, cf. Tomkins, as above.

414 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
colouring of the narrative of this part of Genesis nearly all
scholars may be said to be agreed.1 The colouring is so fresh
and vivid, the portraiture of manners so exact, the allu
sions to customs and institutions are so minute, that it
would be endless to dwell on them. We have the slave-
market ; Potiphar's house, with its Egyptian arrangements ;
the prison ; Pharaoh's butler and baker, the latter with his
baskets of confectionery ; Pharaoh's dreams, so Egyptian in
their character; Joseph as prime minister, buying and
selling corn ; the divining-cup, the chariots, the waggons sent •
to Jacob ; we have Egyptian names, sitting at meals, shaving
the beard, embalming the body, sacred scribes, priests,
physicians, other state functionaries; in short, we find
ourselves veritably on the banks of the Nile, with Egyptian
social and court hfe in full movement around us.
It is perhaps more to the purpose to remark that it is
precisely the points in the history of Joseph which were
formerly challenged which have received clearest illustration
and confirmation from the monuments. Thus it was denied
by Von Bohlen and others, on the authority of Herodotus,
that the vine was cultivated in Egypt ; it was denied that
flesh was an article of diet among the upper classes of the
Egyptians ; the free manners of the women were alleged to
conflict with Oriental privacy ; the elevation of a young
Hebrew to the position of prime minister was thought to
savour of romance; the presents of Pharaoh to Abraham
were objected to because they included sheep and oxen,
which were objects of hatred in Egypt, and did not include
horses, which, in Joseph's day, were common. These objec
tions have disappeared with fuller knowledge, but serve to
show the impossibility of anyone in a later age composing
a narrative of this kind without falling into serious errors.
The monuments, it is well known, show the process of wine-
making in all its stages ; 2 they reveal that, in the words of
Rawlinson, " animal food was the principal diet of the upper
1 The proof on this subject is so abundant that we must refer to the
books for details. Some of the chief are, Ebers, Aegypten und Die Bucher
Moses, i. pp. 295 ff., and art. " Joseph " in Smith's Diet, of Bible, i. (1893) ;
Driver, art. "Joseph," in Diet, of Bible, ii., and in Authority and Archceol.
and Genesis; Tomkins, Life and Times of Joseph (1891) ; Vigouroux, La
Bible et les Ddcouvertes Modernes, ii. ; Rawlinson's Historical Illustrations,
pp. 38 ff. ; Sayce, Higher Criticism, pp. 207 ff.
» Of. Ebers, Smith's D. ofB. i. p. 1795.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 415
classes " ; 1 they illustrate the freedom allowed to women ;
they furnish representations of sheep and oxen ; while the
absence of horses in Abraham's time proves to be a mark
of truth in the narrative, for horses seem to have been
unknown in the twelfth and earher dynasties, and were
first introduced under the Hyksos. There, in Joseph's time,
accordingly, they appear.2 In the story of Saneha, of the
twelfth dynasty, we have a close parallel to the exaltation of
Joseph ; 3 while on the tombs of Beni-Hassan, of the same
dynasty, we have a picture of the reception of a company
of Amu, or Semites, so remarkably resembling the case of
Jacob and his household, that at first it was thought to be
a representation of that patriarch's descent into Egypt.4
Reference cannot be omitted to the Egyptian story, " The
Tale of the Two Brothers," which embodies an account of
the temptation of one of these brothers by the wife of the
other, so strikingly (in parts almost verbally) parallel to
the temptation of Joseph by his mistress, that the two can
hardly be independent. As the Egyptian tale belongs to
the nineteenth dynasty5 — many centuries after Joseph —
the story of Joseph may be presumed to be the original.6
A picture, so full and faithful, of Egyptian life and
manners could only, one would think, take its origin on
Egyptian soil. It is- not a sufficient reply to say, with
Dr. Driver, that Egypt was not far distant from Canaan,
and that the intercourse between the countries during the
monarchy made it easy for a Hebrew writer to gain a
knowledge of Egyptian customs and institutions.7 The
hypothesis, in the first place, is gratuitous, for there is no
reason to suppose that the narrative of Joseph's life, with
its Egyptian characteristics, was not a possession of Israel
from the beginning ; 8 and next, it is inadequate, for it is
1 Hist. Illusts. p. 50. Cf. on these points Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians,

2 Gen. xlvii, 17 ; cf. Maspero, Egypt and Assyria, pp. 81, 82.
8 Cf Canon Cook, essay at end of Speaker's Com. on Exodus, p. 446.
• Ibid. Cf. Ebers, D. of B. i. p. 1793.
8 See the story in Sayce's Higher Criticism, pp. 209-11. It was written
for Seti II., the successor of Meneptah, of the nineteenth dynasty.
8 Cf. Ebers, as above, p. 1795. 7 Genesis, pp. 1, li.
8 The influence of critical theory is well seen in Dr. Driver's (still reason
ably conservative) treatment of the history of Joseph. It cannot be said, he
allows, that there are serious historical improbabilities in the substance of the
history ; but the matter, he says, assumes a different aspect " when account
is taken (1) of the fact that the narratives about Joseph are plainly not the

416 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
contrary to analogy that a writer of one country should be
able so to transpose himself into the midst of a foreign —
even if a neighbouring — civihsation, as to produce a picture
so marvellously true to its life and conditions. Are we to
understand that the problematical J or E undertook a
special tour to Egypt — as the modern novelist might do —
in order to acquaint himself by personal study with the
customs and antiquities of that nation ? Or did the two
writers do so ? Even so, we have only to think of a
Frenchman, e.g., attempting to depict British or American
life or manners ; or of an Englishman or American writing
minutely about Paris ; or of a Londoner trying to describe
Scottish characters and institutions, to see how imperfect
such a picture would necessarily be. We do not attach
much importance to the objections that the narrative does
not give the personal name of Joseph's Pharaoh, and that the
types of names which appear in it — Potiphera, Zaphenath-
paneah, Asenath — do not become frequent till the later
dynasties (twenty-second, twenty-sixth).1 It may strike us,
indeed, as pecuhar that, in the lives of Joseph and Moses,
the proper names of the Pharaohs are not given ; still,
comparison proves that the title " Pharaoh " (simply) was
that commonly employed by Hebrew writers for the king
of Egypt, even when the personal name was quite well
known;2 while the very occurrence of the other names
work of a contemporary, but were in all probability only committed to
writing 700-800 years afterwards ; and (2) of the further curious fact that
' Joseph ' (like many of the other patriarchal names) is also a tribal
name," etc. "The first of these facts," he declares, "at once destroys all
guarantee that we possess in the Joseph-narratives a literal record of the
facts." — Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 771. May not the character of the narratives
rather be a proof that Dr. Driver's dating, which has no sure basis, is wrong ?
See above, pp. 77-78. It was pointed out earlier, also, that Joseph does not,
strictly, give his name to a tribe (p. 89).
Kittel s treatment shows likewise the biassing effect of theory. There is,
e.g., not a grain of foundation for such statements as "when he (Joseph)
emigrated into Egypt his tribesmen were certainly with him," etc. — Hist, of
Hebs. i. p. 187.
In a striking communication to the Expository Times, September 1899,
Professor Sayce argues strongly that the history is substantially a work of
the Mosaic age, based on an Egyptian original, though written in Palestine.
1 Driver, Genesis, p. li ; Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 775 ; cf. Ebers, as above,
p. ,1798. 2 Kg., 1 Kings ix, 16, 24 ; xi. 1, 18, 21 (cf. xi. 40) ; 2 Kings xviii. 21 ;
Isa. xix. 11 ; xxx. 2, 3 ; Jer. xliii. (cf. xliv. 30) ; xlvi, 17 ; xlvii. 1 ; Ezek.
xxxi. 2, 18 ; xxxii. 2, etc. Cf. Assyrian usage in Schrader, i. pp. 140, 162 ;
ii. p. 88.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 417
shows how easy it would have been for the narrator to
decorate his story with names of kings and places, had he
wished to do so. The alleged lateness of particular names
rests, again, on the argument from silence, which may be
upset at any moment,1 and fails to take account of the fact
that the Hyksos period, to which Joseph belonged, is well-
nigh a monumental blank. It is doubtful, besides, whether
all the names have been rightly interpreted.2
V. The Mosaic Period — Thkee Great Discoveries
We come now to the Mosaic period, but, to make the
bearings of recent discoveries on this period intelligible,
it is necessary, first, to say a few words on the general
course of Egyptian history and on the more important of
these discoveries.
Three great periods are commonly distinguished in the
history of Egypt — the Old, the Middle, and the New
Empires. The Old Empire embraces the first eleven
dynasties of Manetho; the Middle Empire extends from
the twelfth dynasty to the seventeenth ; 3 the New Empire
runs from the eighteenth dynasty to the thirtieth, after
which (340 B.c.) Egypt loses its independence.
Of the Old Empire, the fourth and fifth dynasties have left
their memorials in the great Pyramids ; but of the first three
dynasties nothing was known till recently from the monu
ments but the names of kings ; the period from the seventh
to the tenth dynasties was (and remains) hardly less obscure.
The founder of the first dynasty bore the name of Menes ;
but scholars were disposed to regard this king, and the
first dynasties generally, as mythical. Maspero, in his
Dawn of Civilisation, treats Menes as purely mythical, and
gives an elaborate explanation of how the myth arose.4
1 Cf. Sayce, Higher Crit. pp. 212-13 ; Tomkins, Joseph, pp. 183-85,
There is an example of a name of the Potiphera type in the eighteenth
dynasty (Tomkins, p. 185 ; Driver, p. 345, and Diet, of Bible, ii. p. 775),
and it cannot be believed that it stood alone. "Those of the type of
Asenath are found now and then earlier" (Driver, Diet. p. 775).
2 This is true both of Zaphenath-paneah and of Asenath. The latter is
explained as ^Tes-Neit, "belonging to Neith" ; but Brugsch wrote: "The
name of his wife Asnat is pure Egyptian, and almost confined to the Old
and Middle Empire."— Hist, of Egypt, i. p. 265.
8 Some begin the Middle Empire with Dynasty XI.
4 Dawn of Civilisation, pp. 233-34. Menes, according to Maspero,
2 7

41 8 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
As lately as 1894, Professor Flinders Petrie could write:
" The first three dynasties are a blank, so far as monumental
statements are concerned ; they are as purely on a hterary
basis as the kings of Rome or the primeval kings of
Ireland. . . . We cannot regard these dynasties as any
thing but a series of statements made by a state chrono-
grapher, about 3000 years after date, concerning a
period of which he had no contemporary material."1
The judgment thus passed on the early dynasties has
been suddenly reversed, largely by the brilliant explorations
of Professor Petrie himself. The actual tombs of Menes
and his successors have been discovered, with many valuable
objects belonging to them, and the first two dynasties have
been clearly proved to be historical. Civilisation, and the
hieroglyphic system of writing, are carried back into pre-
dynastic times.2 The result is a striking object-lesson —
one of many in recent years — on the unreliableness of what
the discoverer calls " the criticism of myths." 3
In the Middle Empire, the period from the thirteenth
dynasty to the seventeenth is again one of confusion and
uncertainty. This was the time when Egypt was ruled by
the Hyksos, or Shepherd Kings, under one of whom Joseph
was taken down to Egypt,4 soon to be followed by Jacob
with his household. With the overthrow of the Shepherd
"owes his existence to a popular attempt at etymology" (p. 234). Even
Dr. Birch wrote that Menes "must be placed among those founders of
monarchies whose personal existence a severe and enlightened criticism
doubts or denies." — Egypt, p. 25.
1 Hist, of Egypt, i. pp. 16, 19.
2 On the nature and bearings of " pre-dynastic " discoveries, see Budge,
Hist of Egypt, i. chap. i.
8 In an address to the Egyptian Exploration Fund, Nov. 6th, 1901,
Professor Petrie is reported to have said : ' ' The continuous order of seventeen
kings had been established, and the very foundations of Egyptian history
had been settled in a manner which had hitherto seemed beyond hope. . . .
The criticism of myths had told them that Mena, the founder of the
Egyptian monarchy, was but a form of Manu, the lawgiver of India, and
of Minos, the hero of Crete, and to hope for tangible monuments of his
time was but seeing castles in cloudland. Now the long line of a dozen
kings back to Mena was clear before them ; they, had seen and handled the
gold, the crystal, the ivory with his name and engravings. . . . No such
complete materialisation of history had been obtained at one stroke from
any other country or age." See further Note D on the Resurrection of
Myths. 4 Joseph's elevation is traditionally connected with Apophis (Apepi).
With the view of the chronology indicated below, we are disposed to place
it under Apepi I. (c. 1880 B.C.), not Apepi n.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 419
Kings came the founding of the eighteenth dynasty under
Aahmes, and the beginning of the New Empire. Under
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties we reach, perhaps,
the period of greatest splendour in Egypt. It is a period of
the greatest interest to the Biblical student, for it is under
one or other of these dynasties, undoubtedly, that we are
to seek for the Israelitish oppression, and for the Exodus.
The prevailing opinion among scholars has been that the
Pharaoh of the oppression was the great ruler Rameses 11.,
and that the Pharaoh of the Exodus was his son Meneptah,
or one of his immediate successors. Much may be said
for this identification. Especially does it seem to be
indicated by the mention in Ex. i. 11 of the building of
the store cities Pithom and Raamses, both of which
are directly connected, the one (Pi-tum, discovered by
M. Naville in 1883 x) by its bricks, the other by its name,
with Rameses n.2 Yet three great discoveries in recent
times have again thrown more than doubt on the
identification. 1. First in order was the astonishing discovery, in 1881,
of the mummies of the Pharaohs themselves. In a gallery
given off from a pit, 35 feet deep, in a mountain gorge
a few miles from Thebes, some thirty-nine mummies were
found, which proved on inspection to include amongst them
the most renowned kings and queens of Egypt from > the
seventeenth to the twenty-first dynasties. "At the first
report of the discovery," wrote one, " the boldest held his
breath, so astounding is the hst, which includes almost
every name most renowned in the annals of Egypt." The
hst embraced Aahmes, founder of the eighteenth dynasty ;
Thothmes III., and other kings of the same dynasty;
Rameses 1., Seti 1., and Rameses 11., of the nineteenth dynasty.8
1 Cf. his Store City of Pithom and the Route of the Exodus (1885).
2 On the historicity of these notices, cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs, i. pp.
254-56. He shows the difficulties of the supposition that the Hebrew writer
" obtained information respecting the building of Pithom and Eaamses by
means of scholarly investigation, and then attached to this the national tradi
tion of the Israelites " (p. 255). It will naturally occur that a writer who
could name these cities could also have named the Pharaoh had he chosen.
The problems about the city Eaamses, however, are not yet satisfactorily
solved. See Note E on the Identification of Eaamses.
8 Our notice is based on contemporary reports. A popular account is
given of this and of Naville's discovery in The Pharaohs of the Bondage amd
the Exodus, by Chas. S. Robinson, D.D., New York (1887). See also
Nicol, Recent Archseology and the Bible, pp. 16, ff.

420 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
A subsequent discovery of the tomb of Amenophis n.,
in 1898, added seven other mummies to the list. One of
these, taken at first for that of Amendphis li., was found
later to be the mummy of Meneptah, the supposed
Pharaoh of the Exodus.1 To whatever period the Exodus
is assigned, it is beyond reasonable doubt that we have in
our possession the actual mummy of the Pharaoh who
oppressed the Israelites, and from whose face Moses fled.
2. This first discovery was eclipsed, in 1887, by a second,
still more extensive in its bearings. This was the discovery,
already repeatedly referred to, at Tel el-Amarna (a place
on the eastern bank of the Nile, 180 miles south of
Cairo), of a mass of inscribed tablets, some three hundred in
number, forming part, as it proved, of the official corre
spondence of two of the later kings of the eighteenth dynasty
— Amenophis m. and Amenophis rv.2 This latter king (c.
1380 B.c), otherwise called Khu-n-aten, was a " heretic king."
He sought to introduce, and compulsorily to enforce, a new
worship — that of the solar disk (Aten). The opposition
he encountered led him to leave Thebes, and found this
new capital, whither he removed the court records of his
father and himself. The remarkable thing about the
correspondence is that the tablets are written, not in
Egyptian hieroglyphic, but in Babylonian cuneiform — a
fact of the utmost importance as showing that the Baby
lonian language was at that time not only widely known,
but was the medium of official communication between Egypt
and other countries, as French is to-day in Europe. The
letters reveal the wide pohtical relations of Egypt, and are
particularly valuable for the hght they throw on the state of
culture in Palestine, and on the events transpiring in that
country, about 1400 B.C. They include, as will be after
wards seen,8 many letters from the king of Jerusalem and
other rulers in Canaan.
3. The third discovery is still more recent, and bears on
1 Cf. Nicol, as above, p. 320. The correction was announced by Pro
fessor Sayce in 1900.
2 Good accounts of this discovery may be seen in Sayce's Higher Criticism,
pp. 47 ff. ; Bennett's Book of Joshua, pp. 48 ff. ; Pinches, O. T. in Light of
Hist. Records, chap, viii., etc. The most valuable complete translation is
Winckler's (1896).
8 See below, p. 424. Next in importance to the letters of the king of
Jerusalem, in their bearings on the Khabiri (below, p. 424), is the long series of
Rib-Addi of Gebal (Winckler, pp. 124 ff.).

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 421
the question often asked — Is there any mention of Israel
on the Egyptian monuments? Identifications with the
Hebrews have been repeatedly sought, as, e.g., in the aperiu
mentioned in some of the inscriptions;1 but it was not
till 1896 that the name "Israel" was actually found by
Professor Flinders Petrie on a stela of Meneptah, believed,
as above said, to be the Pharaoh of the Exodus. The
inscription on the monument, however, it was soon found,
created more difficulties than it removed. It recounted
the victories of Meneptah over various peoples in and about
Palestine, and apparently included Israel in the hst.
" Israel is spoiled," it reads, " it hath no seed." 2 But if
Israel was in Palestine in the time of Meneptah — and
there seems independent evidence that at least Asher,3 and
perhaps Judah,4 was — it is clear that Meneptah cannot,
in consistency with Bible history, be the Pharaoh of the
Exodus. This at once raised a new question — Is the usual
assumption that Rameses n. was the oppressor, and that
the Exodus took place under Meneptah, or later, a correct
one ? The question is one which it is now necessary to
consider.6 1 The objection to this identification is that aperiu are still found, in
both noble and servile positions, at dates much later than the Exodus.
Thus there is mention of 2083 aperiu as settlers in noble positions in
Heliopolis in the reign of Rameses in., and 800 aperiu are employed
in slave labour in the reign of Rameses iv. (cf. Cook, who accepts
the identification of Chabas, Speaker's Com. Exodus, p. 466 ; Sayce, Fresh
Light, p. 71 ; Hommel, Anc. Heb. Trad. p. 259 ; Driver, Auth. and Arch.
p. 56). Or did some colony of Israelites remain in Egypt ? (Ebers, Durch
Gosen, p. 521). Cook regards the aperiu of Rameses in. as also "captives "
— " prisoners of war."
3 There are considerable variations in the translation given, but generally
the meaning is the same.
8 Thus W. Max Miiller, Asien und Europa, p. 236 ; cf. Hommel, Anc.
Heb. Trad. p. 228.
4 Thus Jastrow, who finds "men of Judah," on the Tel el-Amarna
tablets (Jour, of Bib. Lit. 1893). There is another inscription of the
reign of Meneptah which speaks of Goshen as " abandoned since the time of
the ancestors." Naville infers from this that it was not inhabited ("The
Route of the Exodus," Trans, of Vict. Institute, vol. xxvi. 1892-93).
8 For a fuller discussion of the Egyptian traditions and other ancient
notices in light of Professor Petrie's discovery, see art. by the author in
Expositor, April 1897, " Israel in Egypt and the Exodus."

422 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT

VI. ISEAEL AND THE EXODUS
There have always been scholars who doubted the
current theory of the date of the Exodus,1 but, while the
majority, probably, still adhere to the old date, the effect
of Professor Petrie's discovery has been to lead many to
revise their previous opinions,2 and to create hesitation in
the minds of more. An almost insuperable difficulty in the
way of the Rameses-Meneptah theory is the chronological.
The steady tendency in Egyptian study has been to lower
the dates of the Pharaohs of the nineteenth dynasty.
Professor Flinders Petrie, e.g., puts the accession of Meneptah
as late as 1208 B.C., and the Exodus in 1200 B.C.3 This,
however, leaves little more than 200 years for the interval
between the Exodus and the building of Solomon's temple
(c. 975 B.C.) 4 — a period into which it is impossible to crush
the wanderings and conquest, the times of the Judges, and
the reigns of Saul and David. At the other end, the
period from Abraham (c. 2100 B.o.) to the Exodus is far too
long, about 900 years — some make it longer. Even if the
date of Rameses n. is raised by half a century, the difficulty
is only very partially removed. If, on the other hand, we
take a date which the Bible itself gives us for the Exodus,
viz., 480 years before the building of the temple,6 as
approximately correct, we are taken back to about 1450 B.C.,
just at the close of the reign of the powerful ruler Thothmes
in., of the eighteenth dynasty.8 This date corresponds also
with the interval from Abraham. On this view, the Exodus
would fall in the first years of the reign of Amenophis n.,
1 Cf. the interesting Essay of Canon Cook, Speaker's Com. Exodus, pp.
454-55 ; also Kohler, Bib. Geseh. i. pp. 237-45.
2 Professor Petrie himself, Sayce, Driver, Kittel, etc., adhere to the
ordinary view ; but leading Continental scholars, as Steindorff, Zimmern,
Hommel, etc., with W. Max Muller, Colonel Conder, and others, incline to, or
adopt, an earlier date. Hommel, who took the ordinary view in his Anc.
Heb. Trad., gives the reasons for his change in Expository Times, February
1899. 'Hist, of Egypt, i. pp. 250-51.
4 This is the date approximately fixed by the Assyrian synchronisms.
8 1 Kings vi. 1. The LXX has 440 years. This is found, however, in
none of the remaining versions. The number 480 is found in Aquila,
Symmachus, Peshitta, etc. (cf. Kohler, Bib. Geseh. i. p. 242 ; ii. pp. 36, 39).
6 The years of his sole reign are given by Petrie, after Mahler, as
1481-1449 B.O.— Hist, of Egypt, ii. pp. 155-57.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 423
son of Thothmes in., in whose reign Professor Hommel now
also places it.
It is next to be observed that, on the supposition of this
earlier date, the conditions are in every way as suitable as on
the Rameses theory — perhaps more suitable. The argument
in favour of Rameses 11. from the store cities loses much of
its force when we find that, as might be shown by examples,
it was a habit of this monarch to appropriate the work and
monuments of his predecessors, and give his name to them.1
On the other hypothesis, the oppressor becomes the great
ruler, conqueror, and builder, Thothmes HI., whose character,
length of reign (fifty-four years), and oppression of his subjects,
entirely corresponds with the description in Exodus.2 To
his reign belongs the well-known picture of the brick-making
by captives, so often used to illustrate the bondage of the
Israelites. If the new hypothesis is correct, it need not be
a mere illustration, but may be a picture of the bondage
itself. As in Exodus, over the slaves stand overseers with
their rods, and the words are put into their mouths, " Be
not idle." 3 There is another curious agreement. Thothmes
111. was preceded by Thothmes 11., and he by Thothmes 1.,
whose daughter Hatasu (Hashop) was one of the most re
markable women in Egyptian history. She was associated
with her father in the government ; she married her brother
Thothmes II., and shared his throne ; she was regent in the
minority of Thothmes III. It is at least a singular coinci
dence that, on the theory we are expounding, Moses must
have been born just about the time this " bold and clever "
princess 4 was rising into power. The temptation is great
to connect her with the " Pharaoh's daughter " of the story
in Exodus.6 One other coincidence of much importance remains to
be noticed. This takes us back to the Tel el-Amarna tablets.
1The "Cleopatra's Needle" on the Thames Embankment, London, was
originally an obelisk of Thothmes in. ; Pi-Ramessu was the rebuilding of an
older city ; this seems to have been the case also with Pithom. In this case
the use of the name Raamses would seem to show that the narrative at least
is as late as Rameses II. But it must still be doubtful whether the Raamses
of Ex. i. 11 is a city built by this king. See Note E.
2 Ex. v.
8 Cf. Brugsch, Hist, of Egypt, i. pp. 375-76 ; see Brugsch on the whole
reign. 4 Ibid. p. 296 ; cf. her history in Petrie, Hist, of Egypt, u. pp. 79-96.
8 Cf. Ex. ii. 5 ff.

424 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
These, as was stated, include many letters from Palestine,
and reveal an extraordinary state of things in that country.
The land, especially in the south, was overrun by a people
called the Khabiri, who had come up, apparently, from Seir,
and were carrying all before them. The tone of all the
letters that mention them, as Colonel Conder says, "is a
despairing cry for help to Egypt, but none of them record
that any help was sent, though eagerly expected. They-
relate no victories over the Khabiri."1 Specially piteous
are the lamentations of Abdi-Khiba, king of Jerusalem.
"The Khabiri have devastated all the king's territory" —
" The Kha,biri are occupying the king's cities " — " There
remains not one prince to my lord, the king ; every one is
ruined " — " If no troops come, the whole territory of my lord,
the king, will be lost." 2 This is the reign of Amenophis IV.
(c. 1380 b.c), which is seen ending in defeat and disaster.
If, however, the Exodus is placed where the new hypothesis
suggests, or possibly a reign later, under Thothmes iv. (the
Thummosis of Manetho), their invasion synchronises very
closely with the conquest of Canaan by the Israelites, and
many leading scholars, accordingly, now seriously propose an
identification of these Khabiri with the Hebrews.8 The
subject is still under discussion, but it is easy to see how
interesting are the possibilities it opens up.
VII. Empire of the Hittites — Period of the Kings
It remains to indicate in the briefest survey the light
cast by archaeology on the relations of Israel to the great
powers with which, in so many ways, it was brought into
contact, after the settlement in Canaan.
1. And first may be mentioned the remarkable corro
borations of Scripture in its references to the existence and
1 Bible and the East, pp. 40, 41, 106-7.
2 Cf. in Winckler, letters 179-85 (pp. 303-15). The letters are also given
by Sayce in Early Israel, App. pp. 287 ff. The descriptions in the letters
meet the objection that the conquest could not have taken place at this time,
because Canaan was subject to Egypt. If the Khabiri could in this way
overrun Palestine, certainly the Israelites could do so.
8 Zimmern, Winckler, etc., favour this identification; Hommel now
accepts it. One of the best defences of it is by H. Billet in the Deutsch-
Evangel. Blatter, No. 7. Professor Hommel wrote the author in February
1899 : "I see in them the first onset (Vorstoss) of the twelve tribes." See
also Benzinger, in Hilprecht's Explorations, p. 620.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 425
power of the Hittites. In the Books of Joshua and Kings
are found various references which imply the existence of a
great and formidable Hittite empire or confederacy north of
Palestine, and this long after, as well as before, the Israehtes
had obtained possession of Canaan. Thus, in Joshua i. 4 :
"From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the
great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites."
In 1 Kings x. 28, 29, we are told of chariots and horses
being brought from Egypt for " all the kings of the Hittites."
Still later, in 2 Kings vii. 6, we read of a flight of the
Syrians occasioned by the belief that the king of Israel had
hired against them "the kings of the Hittites and the
kiDgs of the Egyptians." x As, however, no ancient writer
knew anything about such a power, these Scriptural allusions
to them were, as usual, treated as unhistorical, or as mere
rhetorical flourishes. "The unhistorical tone," wrote Mr.
Francis W. Newman in his Hebrew Monarchy, " is far too
manifest to allow of our easy belief in, it " (the flight of the
Syrians), adding that the reference to the Hittites "does
not exhibit the writer's acquaintance with the times in a
very favourable hght."2 Now, it will hardly be disputed
that the statements of Scripture on this subject are con
firmed to the letter.3 Alike from Egyptian and from
Assyrian inscriptions we learn that this Hittite people were
for nearly 1000 years a great ruling power in Syria and
Western Asia, extending their influence eastwards as far as
the Euphrates. They had, in short, an empire hardly less
great than Egypt and Assyria themselves. The kings of
the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties in Egypt conducted
extensive campaigns against them, the events of which
constitute a considerable part of their annals.4 But beyond
this their own abundant monuments, inscribed with a
hieroglyphic which scholars are still busy attempting to
decipher, now discover to us what manner of people they
were, and testify to the wide range of their supremacy. It
1 Of. Judg. i. 26, "unto the land of the Hittites."
3 Heb. Monarchy, pp. 184-85.
8 Cf. the works of Sayce (Fresh Light, Higher Criticism, Early Israel,
etc.) ; Wright, Empire of the Hittites; Driver, Authority and Archceology,
pp. 83-87 ; Jensen, in Hilprecht's Explorations, pp. 755 ff.
4 Cf. the treaty of Rameses n. with the Hittites in Brugsch ; also in Sayce,
Early Israel, pp. 297 ff. The Hittites are prominent also in the Tel el-
Amarna tablets. Cf. Pinches, as above, pp. 306 ff.

426 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
is already known that the Hittite language was not a
Semitic, but an Aryan, tongue, and Jensen has thrown out
the conjecture that the Hittites of the monuments were the
ancestors of the modern Armenians.1 It seems evident that
the Biblical books in which these references to the Hittites
occur must have been written when the power of that
people was yet in the ascendant, else the writers would have
blundered in regard to them hke others.
2. Space would fail to tell of the long series of dis
coveries minutely illustrating and corroborating the narra
tives of the historical books of the Old Testament in the
period of the kings. It is a striking fact that there is
hardly a single point of contact with foreign powers in this
period which does not receive illustration from the monu
ments; while the Assyrian synchronisms and notices in
the Eponym Canon2 afford valuable aid in rectifying the
Bible chronology. Only to glance at outstanding instances —
the walls of the Hall of Karnak give Shishak's own boast
ful account of his invasion of Israel and Judah in the time
of Rehoboam;8 Mesha, king of Moab, set up his stone at
Dibon to commemorate the freeing of his country from the
yoke of Israel ; 4 the Bible informs us that Ahab at the end
of his life made a covenant with Benhadad of Syria,6 and, on
the Assyrian side, we have a notice of Ahab as present with
Benhadad at the battle of Karkar, 854 B.C., when the
Syrians were defeated by Shalmaneser n. ; this apparently
brought Israel under tribute to Assyria, and Jehu's servants
are next pictured on Shalmaneser's black obehsk as bearing
tribute to that monarch ; the relations of Israel and Judah
with Tiglath-pileser, or Pul (shown by the lists of kings to
be the same person) are circumstantially confirmed;
1 Jensen, as above, p. 777.
2 A list of the rotation and succession of officers (analogous to the archons
of Athens and the consuls of Rome). Cf. article by the author on " Assyrian
and Hebrew Chronology " in the Presbyterian Review, January 1899.
8 2 Chron. xii. This is one of the narratives in Chronicles not found in
Kings, and proves the use of special and authentic sources.
4 2 Kings i. 1 ; iii. 4 ff. The inscription may be seen in full (original and
translation, with notes) in Driver's Samuel, pp. lxxxv ff. ; and Bennett's art.
"Moab" in Diet, of Bible, iii. pp. 403 ff. Dr. Driver is clearly mistaken in
making the revolt to be already "completed in the middle of the reign of
Ahab, and finding therein a discrepancy with Scripture. Mesha's "forty
years " from Omri reach down to Jehoram's time, as in 2 Kings. Possibly
he is the son of Omri intended. Omri's own reign was a short one.
8 1 Kings xx. 34 ; xxii. 1.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 427
Menahem, Pekah, and Hoshea appear in this monarch's
inscriptions as on the Bible page ; x Hoshea's rebellion, and
the carrying away of the people by Sargon, after the fall of
Samaria, are described;2 Sargon's own palace was, as
formerly mentioned, one of the first Ninevite discoveries ; 8
Sennacherib's version of his expedition against Hezekiah,
his siege of Lachish, and the other events of his reign, may
be read from his own annals ; 4 his murder by his son, and
the accession of Esarhaddon, are duly recorded ; 6 Tirhakah
appears as " king of Egypt and Ethiopia." 6
The captivity of Manasseh, his repentance, and his
restoration to his kingdom, are, like the invasion of Shishak,
recorded only in Chronicles.7 The narrative has very
generally been pronounced unhistorical on the double ground,
apart from the silence of the Book of Kings, that we have
no mention of the supremacy of the Assyrians at this time
in Western Asia, and that the king is declared to have been
carried to Babylon, not to Nineveh. Both objections, as
Schrader shows, " lose their force in presence of the inscrip
tions." 8 Manasseh's name occurs in the list of tributaries
of both Esarhaddon and Assurbanipal (" Manasseh, king of
Judah ") ; 9 and, as kings of Babylon, the sovereigns some
times held then* court in that city.10 The release of
Manasseh has a parallel in the case of Pharaoh-Necho. He
was brought to Nineveh, as Manasseh was to Babylon, " in
iron chains," yet Assurbanipal, a httle later, allowed him to
return to Egypt and resume his power.11 Schrader sums up
the results of a careful examination by saying " that there
is no reason to cast any suspicion on the statement of the
Chronicler, and that what he relates can be satisfactorily
1 2 Kings xv. 3 2 Kings xvii. 1-6.
8 See above, p. 398.
4 2 Kings xviii. 13 ff. Sennacherib, as was to be expected, is silent about
the disaster to his army, which yet is needed to account for the raising of the
siege. 8 2 Kings xix. 37.
8 2 Kings, xix. 9. Cf. Schrader, Cun. Inscriptions, ii. p. 10.
» 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11-13.
8 Cun. Inscripts. ii. pp. 54 ff.
9 Cf. Pinches, as above, pp. 386-88.
10 Schrader, p. 55 ; Sayce, Higher Crit. pp. 458-60. Even H. P. Smith
concedes: "The mention of Babylon which formerly made a difficulty does
so no longer, because we know that Ashurbanipal spent a great deal of time
in that city."— 0. T. Hist. p. 258.
11 Sayce, as above, p. 461.

428 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
accounted for from the circumstances that existed in the
year 647 B.c." x VEIL The Book of Daniel
There is something approaching to a consensus of
opinion among critical scholars that the Book of Daniel, as
it Hes before us, is a production of the Maccabsean age ; only
that, while a majority will have it to be composed wholly in
that age, others, like Delitzsch and Orelli,2 think that it
rests on a basis of genuine history and prophecy, and is at
most revised, and adapted to the circumstances of the
Maccabaean age, as a book of comfort to the confessors and
martyrs in their persecution.3 Without entering into the
critical question, we would point out that the sweeping
statements often made as to the unhistorical character of
the book need to be received with great caution. With the
progress of monumental discovery, the objections that have
been heaped up against it tend, not to increase, but to
disappear. The startling evidence, e.g., that has come to
Hght of the early date and wide diffusion of a high Greek
civihsation, and of the continuous intercourse of the Greeks
with other countries from remote times,4 renders nugatory
any objection based on the atieged names of Greek instru
ments in the account of Nebuchadnezzar's music. Readers
1 Cun. Inscripts. ii. p. 59 ; cf. Sayce, Early Israel, pp. xvii ff.
2 Cf. Delitzsch, Mess. Prophecies (1891), pp. 298 ff. ; Orelli, O.T. Prophecy,
pp. 454 ff.
8 The view in question is stated thus by Orelli: "Neither of the
narratives of Dan. i.-vi., nor of the visions vii.-xii., can we allow that they owe
their origin to the Maccabsean age. As to the former, we are of opinion that
they contain history handed down from the time of the exile, and were merely
compiled by a late author, who to all appearance, especially according to
linguistic indications, belonged to the Maccabsean age. We come to a
similar conclusion in respect to the apocalyptic visions. . . . We think that
even here traditional visions of the real Daniel, renowned for his prophetic
keenness of sight (Ezek. xxviii. 3) form the real kernel, but that these
visions were not merely collected and redacted by an author living under
Antiochus, but also set by illustrative explanations in intimate relation to
the oppression of that age." — Prophecy, pp. 455-56. See further below,
p. 458. 4 Active intercourse existed between Greece and Egypt, Canaan, and
other lands, from the Tel el-Amarna times, and even earlier. The pottery
found at Mycenae is said to belong to the age of the eighteenth and nineteenth
dynasties of Egypt ; conversely, Flinders Petrie found Mycenaean pottery
at Tel el-Amarna. The tablets already mention Yivana or Javan. Cf.
Sayce, Higher Criticism, pp. 18-20 ; Kittel, Bib. Excavs. pp. 14-18, etc.

ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT 429
of Professor Flinders Petrie's Ten Years' Digging in Egypt
may think they find, in connection with the discoveries at
Tahpahnes,1 what seems a sufficient answer to that objection.
The picture of Nebuchadnezzar, again, given in the book, is
in fullest accord with the idea of him obtained from his own
inscriptions and works. It must at least be allowed that
discovery has proved the historical reality of one personage
whom criticism had persisted in regarding as mythical, viz.,
Belshazzar. Belshazzar appears in Daniel as " king of the
Chaldeans,"2 but his name is not found in any ancient
historian. The last king of Babylon was called Nabonidus,
and no room seemed left for another. It is now discovered,
however, from inscriptions and contract tablets, that
Nabonidus had a son who bore this name Belshazzar, and
who, to judge from the prominent place he has in the
inscriptions, was in some way associated with his father in
the government.3 This would explain Belshazzar's promise
to make Daniel the third ruler in the kingdom, or, as some
understand it, one of " a board of three." 4 It would seem,
further, from the Babylonian account, that " the king's son
died " on the night in which the city was finally captured.6
In other respects discrepancies are aUeged to exist between
the account of the taking of the city in the inscriptions of
Cyrus and the statements in Daniel. We are confident that
most of these will disappear with more accurate reading and
interpretation. In the Babylonian account the city is
described as taken "without fighting." It is, however,
carefully to be noted that in the Chronicle a considerable
interval elapses between the first peaceful entrance into the
1 Ten Tears' Digging, pp. 64 ff. : " Here then was a ready source for the
introduction of Greek words and names into Hebrew, long before the
Alexandrine age ; and even before the fall of Jerusalem the Greek names of
musical instruments and other words may have been heard in the courts of
Solomon's temple" (p. 54). Cf. Professor Petrie's Tanis, Pt. ii. pp. 49, 50
(4th Mem. of Pal. Explor. Fund). Dr. Cheyne takes Professor Petrie to
task for accounting in this way for the Greek names of instruments in Daniel
(Origin of Psalter, p. 10).
2 Dan. v. 30.
8 Cf. Pinches, p. 414. According to Dr. Pinches, Belshazzar was "the
real ruler," but not so officially. Professor R. D. Wilson, of Princeton, who
has made a special study of the royal titles of this period, claims that the
bearing of the title "king" by Belshazzar is in harmony with the usage of
the time. See Note F on Belshazzar and Babylon.
4 Dan. v. 7.
8 Cf. the "Babylonian Chronicle, "given in Pinches, pp. 415-16 ; Driver,
Daniel, p. xxix-xxx ; Sayce, Higher Crit. pp. 502-3.

430 ARCHAEOLOGY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
city and its final fall. The first entrance is made in the
month Tammuz (July), but the completion of the capture,
and the death of Belshazzar, do not take place till
Marcheswan (November) — four months later.1 The pro-
babihties are that Nabonidus commanded the forces in the
field, while Belshazzar held the city within. Nabonidus
was defeated, and taken captive in Babylon, and, as we read
it, the outer part of the city fell into the hands of Gobryas,
the general of Cyrus, and his soldiers. The inner part,
however, held out for some months, when Cyrus, in some
unknown way, became master of it.2 Belshazzar was slain
on the night of its capture — again in agreement with Daniel.
Not improbably, also, the Gobryas of the inscriptions, whom,
we are told, Cyrus made governor, and who "appointed
governors in Babylonia," is the long-sought-for " Darius the
Mede," who " received the kingdom," and reigned for two
years.8 Note. — The Sabbath : The strongest reason for doubting
that the Babylonian Sabbath was a day of general rest
(cf. pp. 403-4) is furnished by Professor R. D. Wilson, in an
art. on "Babylon and Israel" in The Princeton Theol.
Beview for April 1903. Dr. Wilson shows, on the basis of
a large induction, that contracts were freely drawn up on
the Sabbaths as on other days. Cf. also Konig's Die Babel-
Bibel-Frage, p. 22.
1 See the Babylonian Chronicle, as above.
3 Cf. Pinches, p. 418 ; Driver, Daniel, p. xxxi. In a very important
note (Higher Crit. p. 522) Sayce shows that contracts in Babylon continued
to be dated by the year of " Nabonidus king of Babylon" after the capture
in July up to November. These are noted as drawn up in "the city of the
king's palace, Babylon," while one dated in December "in the accession
year of Cyrus " is simply inscribed " Babylon."
8 Gobryas had already been described as "governor of Gutium." The
remarks of Prof. R. D. Wilson on the use of the title "king" apply to
Darius also. See, on whole subject, the valuable note of Kohler in Bib.
Geseh. iii. pp. 535-41.

CHAPTER XII
psalms anb propbets : £be proaressfveness of
Ktevelatfon

«n

"How varied and how splendid the wealth which this treasury [the
Psalter] contains, it is difficult to describe in words. . . . This Book, not
unreasonably, I am wont to style an anatomy of all parts of the soul, for no
one will discover in himself a single feeling whereof the image is not
reflected in this mirror." — Calvin.
"After busying myself with the Old Testament in its original text
for over forty-eight years, I can bear witness with fullest truth, that what
ever cleaves to the Old Testament of imperfection, yea, perhaps, of offence,
in a word, of 'the form of a servant,' has from year to year for me ever the
more shrivelled up into nothingness, with an ever deepening penetration
into the overmastering phenomenon of prophecy." — Kautzsch.
"Kuenen has designated his investigation of prophecy strictly im
partial ; but it is not to be mistaken that his arrangement is controlled by
the motive of reducing faith in a divine inspiration of the prophets to
absurdity. " — Giesebbeoht.
"When I come to such psalms wherein David curseth his enemies, oh !
then let me bring my soul down to a lower note, for these words were made
only to fit David's mouth." — Thomas Fuller.
"It is evident, then, that a progressive revelation — if the idea of such
a revelation is once admitted — must be judged by its end and not by its
beginning. . . . According to any rule of judging in such cases, the
morality of a progressive dispensation is not the morality with which it
starts, but that with which it concludes. The test is not the commencement,
but the result." — Mozley.

«*

CHAPTER XII
PSALMS AND PROPHETS : THE PROGRESSIVENESS
OF REVELATION
If the history is the body of the Old Testament rehgion,
the psalms and prophets may be said to be its soul. It is
not our purpose in this concluding chapter to enter upon a
full discussion of either the Psalter or prophecy. It will
be enough to confine attention to two problems in regard
to these — first, the place of the psalms in the history of
revelation, and specially their connection with David ; 1 and
second, the place and function of the predictive element in
prophecy, with certain canons of interpretation which arise
out of the consideration of that subject. Our discussion
may then close with some reflections on the progressiveness
of revelation, in its bearings on what are called the " moral
difficulties " of the Old Testament.

Part I
David and the Psalter
In one point of view, the spiritual teaching of the
Psalter — its power of help and inspiration — is indepen
dent of any views we may form as to the place and time of
its origin. The psalms by which our faith and hope are
nourished are the same, whoever were their authors, or in
whatever age they were composed. They deal with
relations of the soul to God which are above time, or are
the same in all time ; and if, instead of being largely pre-
exilian, as has been commonly supposed, aU of them were
proved to be post-exilian, they would not lose a jot of their
1 On the structure of the Psalter, see above, pp. 197, 227.
28

434 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
essential spiritual value. Yet the question of the age of
the psalms is, in another respect, far from being one to
which we can afford to be indifferent. The psalms are
lamps brightly illuminating the religious conditions of the
age in which they had their origin: and if any of them
belong to the pre-exilian age, their aid is of the first
importance in determining the real character of the religion
of that age. It is this, in fact, which makes it necessary for
the newer criticism to put the psalms down into the post-
exilian period. Their earher existence will not harmonise
with the views put forth as to the stages of the religious
development. If even eight or ten of the psalms be allowed
to David, it is not too much to say that the critical
hypothesis of Kuenen and Wellhausen — at least their
theory of the religion — is blown into the air. It is part of
our problem, therefore, to inquire what the truth is in this
matter.1 I. Theory of the Post-exilian Origin of the Psalter
It has now become almost a dogma in the Wellhausen
school that the Psalter is wholly, or with minute and
doubtful exception, post-exihan in origin. Wellhausen lays
it down that, " as the Psalter belongs to the Hagiographa,
and is the hymn-book of the Church of the second temple . . .
the question is not whether it contains any post-exihan
psalms, but whether it contains any that are pre-exihan." 2
This question he answers for himself in the negative. The
psalms, he says, are "altogether the fruit" of the post-
exilian period.3 Reuss had preceded him in this judgment ;
and Stade, Duhm, Cheyne, and the greater number of this
1 Delitzsch observes : "Schultz, in his Alttest. Theol. (2nd edit. 1878),
acknowledges at least ten psalms as Davidic. The consequences which foljow
for the reconstruction of the history of Israel from the recognition, whether
it be of ten or more genuine Davidic psalms, are so important, that the
endeavour of some recent writers to bring down all the psalms to the time
after the exile is comprehensible as an attempt to paralyse these conse
quences." — Com. on Psalms, i. p. 11. With his later change of critical
standpoint, Schultz gave up even the ten psalms, and concluded "that
perhaps only Ps. xviii. can be ascribed to David with anything like absolute
certainty." — O.T. Theol. i. p. 64. We shall see, however, that much lies
even in the admission of Ps. xviii. ; it, too, accordingly, is now generally
denied to David. See below, p. 446.
3 Wellhausen's Bleek, Einleit., (1876), p. 507; Psalms ("Poly. Bib."),
p. 163. 'Hist, of Israel, p. 501.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 435
school, echo the opinion.1 A more moderate position is
taken by Dr. Driver, who allows that several of the psalms
— especially those which allude to the king — may be pre
sumed to be pre-exilian ; but thinks that " very few of the
psalms are earlier than the eighth century b.c."2 Well
hausen's opinion of the psalms, it may be observed, is not a
high one. In one of his latest works he says : " There is
nothing analogous to the psalms in pre-exihan times.
They are prayers of quite another kind from those known
to antiquity : they rest on the despair of Jeremiah and the
confidence of the Great Anonymous " (Isa. xL ff.). And in a
note: "They certainly are only to the smallest extent
original ; are for the most part imitations, which illustrate
the saying about much writing: often they are not real
prayers at all, but sermons, and even narratives in the form
of prayers. One sees how prayer becomes an art and
species of literature." 8
On this theory we remark :
1. This dictum, that the psalms are aU, or mostly, of
post-exihan date, neither is, nor can be, proved. There are,
no one doubts, post-exilian psalms ; * it is an open question
whether there are not a few Maccabsean psalms.6 Calvin
admitted the possibility of such, and, till recently, opinion
was divided on the subject — to some extent is so stiU —
generaUy, however, with a leaning to denial.6 But only an
1 For the history of opinion on the psalms, see Robertson, Poetry and
Religion of the Psalms, pp. 40 ff. ; Kirkpatrick, The Psalms, pp. xxxvii ff. ;
Baethgen, Cheyne, etc. Reuss says we have "no decisive proofs of psalms of
the period of the kingdom (Geschicht. d. Heil. Schriften, p. 366 ; cf. p. 197).
Duhm denies that a single psalm is pre-exilian. The discussions of W. R.
Smith (O.T. in J. C, 1st edit. pp. 197 ff.) and of Driver (Introd. pp. 373 ff.)
are unfavourable to the positive ascription of any psalms to David : in his 2nd
edit. W. R. Smith discards Davidic psalms altogether, and makes the whole
Psalter, with slight exception (p. 220), post-exilian (cf. pp. 218-25).
3 Introd. p. 384.
'Israel, und Jiid. Geschichte (1897), p. 197.
4 Such, e.g., manifestly (exilian or post-exilian) are Pss. cii., cxxiv., cxxvi.,
cxxxvii., and others in the 4th and 5th Books of the Psalter.
8 The most striking of the psalms claimed for this period are Pss. xliv.,
lxxiv., lxxix.
6 Hitzig and Olshausen were the main advocates of Maccabsean psalms :
Gesenius, Hupfeld, Ewald, Bleek, Dillmann, etc., refused to acknowledge
them : so Hengstenberg, Havernick, Keil (cf. Delitzsch, Psalms, i. p. 15) :
Delitzsch admits the possibility. Bleek (Introd. ii. p. 239) and Dillmann
(Jahr. d. deutsch. Theol. iii. pp. 460-62) hold that theTe is no good ground
for placing any psalm later than Nehemiah's age. Of more recent writers,
Duhm, Baethgen (Psalmen, p. xxviii), Kirkpatrick, etc., reject Maccabsean

436 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
anti-traditional bias, combined with assumptions as to the
line of development of Israel's religion, can claim to regard
it as established that all, or even the bulk of, the psalms
are post-exihan compositionB. Grant all that is said of the
untrustworthiness of the titles, and of the difficulty of
proving that a single psalm is from the pen of David — a
point to which we shall return later, — the assumption of
Davidic psalms has at least behind it a firmly-fixed Jewish
tradition, dating from times when the Canon was still in
process of formation: the assertion that none — or hardly
any — of the psalms are pre-exilian has neither documentary
nor traditional support, and is not borne out by considera
tions of internal probability. As a question of evidence,
everything that is urged as to the impossibility of proving
that David wrote any of the psalms can be retorted with
equal force against the unsupported assertion that the
psalms in question are post-exilian.
2. In judging of the assertions frequently made as to
the marvellous Hterary productivity of the post-exilian age,
it is important to bear in mind that the greater part of that
period is an absolute blank to our knowledge. This is
hardly always reahsed as it should be. We speak of the
"connection" of the Old and New Testaments, but it is
really not in our -power, up to the time of the Maccabees, to
write a history of the period after the return at all. There
is " a great gap " from Nehemiah to Antiochus Epiphanes,
i.e., from 400 b.c. to 175 b.c, which even Josephus can fill
up with only a few legendary notices.1 Of the century
between Artaxerxes Longimanus (465-325 B.C.), Josephus
chronicles nothing, and his history is in great confusion
otherwise. What we do know is that, from the time of
Ezra, the nation set before itself as its religious ideal the
strict and conscientious observance of the law of Moses.
Hence the development of the order of the scribes, and the
legalistic stamp on the piety of later Judaism. When the
curtain lifts again in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, we
psalms. See the grounds clearly stated in Kirkpatrick, Psalms, pp. xliv ff.
Professor W. R. Smith reasons against Maccabsean psalms in Books I.-III.
of the Psalter (0. T. in J. C. , pp. 207, 437 ff. ), but finds some in later Books
(p. 211).
1 Cf. Schiirer, Hist, of Jewish People, i. p. 86. Professor W. R. Smith
says : " It must be admitted that we know but little of the history after the
time of Nehemiah."— 0. T. in J. C.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 437
find ourselves in a new atmosphere of Hellenism, and the
three parties of historical note — the Pharisees, the Sadducees,
and the Essenes — are, in germ at least, already in existence.1
This age of stiffening legalism, of priestly ascendency, of
Bcribism, of cessation of the prophetic spirit, is not that to
which we should naturally look for the creation of such a
book as our present Psalter. Our very ignorance about it,
no doubt, makes the period a convenient receptacle for all
sorts of critical hypotheses ; 2 but it cannot be too strongly
borne in remembrance that these hypotheses rest, for the
most part, on unverifiable conjecture. When, e.g., Professor
Bennett says : " The exilic, Persian, and Greek periods were
specially rich in psalms," 3 he makes a statement which he
no doubt beheves to be true, but for which there is no
historical evidence. When, again, Professor Cheyne writes
of " the time when the temple with its music was reorganised
and the Psalter re-edited by Simon,"4 he must be aware,
indeed elsewhere admits,6 that history knows nothing of
such transactions. They are simply imaginations of his
own, transformed into facts.
3. It must appear strange, surely, that an age assumed
to be one of such extraordinary Hterary activity should
have left, among its numerous products, no record of itself.
Ezra and Nehemiah wrote of their own times ; the Chronicler
recalled and glorified the past ; but not a pen, apparently,
was found, after Nehemiah, to record contemporary events.
Does this look hke a golden age of psalmody ? That the
return from captivity should give rise to a group of psalms,
celebrating that great event, is only what might be expected.
But the post-exilian psalms, for the most part, are easily
recognised, and they constitute a relatively small portion of
the Psalter. The great majority of the psalms — especially
those in the earlier books — have nothing pecuharly post-
exihan about them. They are written in pure and vigorous
1 Josephus mentions the three parties as in existence in the time of
Jonathan the Maccabee, about 150 B.C. (Ant. xiii. 5. 9). The Pharisees are
no doubt correctly identified with the Assidseans (Chasidim) of 1 Mace. ii.
42 ; vii. 12 ff. Cf. Schurer, Hist, of Jewish People (Div. ii.), ii. pp. 26 ff.
3 In one of the last conversations the writer had with the late A. B..
Davidson, he commented in his pungent way on the use made of this blank
period. "A free coup," he said, using the Scotch phrase applied to place*
granted for the free emptying of rubbish.
8 Primer, p. 100.
4 Origin of Psalter p. 458. • Ibid. p. 11.

43& PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
Hebrew.1 They are personal and spiritual in tone, touching
the deepest and most universal chords in religious
experience. They show no traces of post-exiHan legalism, or
of the ideas of the Priestly Code. On the other hand, many
of the psalms suit admirably the conditions of an earlier
time, where they do not contain features which necessitate,
or at least are most naturally explained by, a pre-exilian
date. Such, especially, is the not inconsiderable series of
psalms that make mention of the "king,"2 which cannot
be brought down to a post-exilian time without extreme
forcing. Such, to our mind, are those that contain allusions
to the " tabernacle " (tent),3 to the ark and cherubim,4 to the
temple as a centre of national worship,6 to conquests of sur
rounding peoples,6 and the hke. In a few of the later psalms we
find such expressions used of Jehovah as " among the gods,"
" above the gods," " God of gods," " before the gods," 7 which
is not what, on the newer theory, we naturally look for from
the strict monotheism of post-exilian times. Alternatively,
whT the critics grant us that the use of such expressions
does not imply, as is sometimes argued for pre-exilian times,
that monotheism is not yet reached ?
4. This raises the larger question of the general history
of psalmody and of the connection of psalmody with David.
We touch briefly on psalm-collection after,8 and meanwhile
look only at the indications of pre-exilian psalmody, and at
the Davidic tradition. Lyric poetry, as Delitzsch reminds
us,9 is of very early date in Israel. When, in addition, one
1 Some psalms, as Ps. cxxxix., bear marks of lateness, but most are
written, as Reuss admits, in good, pure, classical Hebrew. Cf. Robertson,
Psalms, p. 64.
2 Such are Pss. ii., xviii., xx., xxi., xxviii., xxxiii., xiv., lxi., lxiii.,
lxxii., ci., ex. Dr. Cheyne's attempt to explain these psalms from the
Maccabsean or Greek age (Judas, Simon, Ptolemy Philadelphus), is justly
characterised by Baethgen as "a complete failure." Cf. his Psalmen, pp.
xxiv-xxv. i
8 See below, p. 447.
4 Pss. Ixxx. 1 ; xcix. 1 ; exxxii. 8. As there was no ark in the second
temple, it seems most natural (though " oherubim " might refer to the
heavenly temple) to regard these psalms as pre-exilian. Cf. Delitzsch and
Perowne, in loc.
'E.g., Pss. xlvi., xlviii., lxxxiv. 8 E.g., Ps. Ix. 6 ff.
7 Pss. lxxxvi. 8 ; exxxv. 5 ; exxxvi. 2 ; exxxviii. 1. The " liturgical "
character of these psalms does not necessarily prove them "post-exilian,"
but some of them appear made up from earlier passages, and may reasonably
be regarded on that account as late.
6 See below, p. 448. 9 Psalms, i. p. 9.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 439
remembers the deep religious foundations on which the Hfe
of Israel as a nation rested, the signal manifestations of
God's presence and power in its history,1 and the powerful
workings of His Spirit in individuals and in the community
in other directions, it is a priori to be expected that sacred
hymnody would not be lacking in the public and private
worship of pre-exihan times. That rehgious song' and music
did exist under the old temple seems abundantly attested
by the place given to " singers " in the narratives of the
return,2 and by what is said of their functions,8 and is
further directly evidenced by the taunt addressed to the
exiles at Babylon by their captors to sing to them " the
songs of Zion " — " Jehovah's songs." 4 , Express reference
is made to the praises of the first temple in Isa. lxiv. 11 :
" Our holy and beautiful house, where our fathers praised
Thee " (cf. chap. xxx. 29). In regard to particular psalms,
Professor W. R. Smith aUows that Ps. viii. is the foundation of
Job's question in chap. vii. 17, 18 ; 6 and there is what seems
to be a clear quotation of Ps. i. — by no means one of the
earhest of the psalms, and apparently the preface to a
collection of Davidic psalms — in Jer. xvii 8.6 It has been
seen that many other psalms — e.g., those relating to the
king — can only be put in pre-exilian times : even Prof. W. R.
Smith admits this of Pss. xx., xxi.7 Pre-exihan psalmody is
thus estabhshed; and that a firm and constant tradition
traced back the beginnings of this psalm-composition to
David — " the sweet psalmist of Israel " 8 — is not less evident
from the ascription of so large a body of psalms to David
by their titles,9 and from the fact that in Chronicles the
1 This argument is admirably worked out in detail by Professor Robertson
in his Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, chaps, vii., viii.
3 Ezra ii. 41, 65 ; vii. 7, 24 ; Neh. x. 28, 29.
8 Ezra iii. 10, 11 ; Neh. xi. 22, 23 ; xii. 45-47.
4 Ps. cxxxvii. 3, 4. 6 O.T. in J. C, p. 220.
6 See below, p. 450. The alternative suppositions that the psalm is based
on this passage in Jeremiah, or that both have a common source, have little
probability. " It is the custom of Jeremiah," says Delitzsch, " to reproduce
predictions of his predecessors, and more especially expressions found in the
psalms, in the flow of his own discourse, and to transform their style into
his own."— Psalms, i. Cf. Perowne, i. p. 106 ; Kirkpatrick, p. 1 ; Baethgen,
p. 1. See also Ezek. xlvii. 12.
i As above. 8 2 Sam. xxiii. i.
8 The whole of Book I. of the Psalter is ascribed to David, with the excep
tion of Pss. i. and ii. (preparatory), x. (part of ix.), and xxxiii. ("the first
book, therefore, is. a formal collection of psalms ascribed to David."— W. R.

440 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
whole organisation of the service of song and music in the
sanctuary is traced back to him.1 It is futile, as was
formerly seen, to dismiss such statements as mere inventions
of the Chronicler.2 That writer must be presumed to be
drawing in good faith from older sources, and to be express
ing what, at the time when these sources were composed,
was well-estabhshed belief. Such consentient tradition
ought not to be lightly set aside. Instead of rejecting it
on the ground that many of the titles in the psalms are
conjectural and untrustworthy — which admittedly is the
case — we shall act more wisely in using it as a clue for our
guidance where facts do not show that it is clearly at fault.
Before proceeding further, we shaU look at what is to be
said in favour of, and what in opposition to, this view that
David is the author of many of the psalms.
II. The Historical Position of David as Psalmist
In opposition to the Biblical tradition, the position
taken up by the critics is, that the historical David is not
an individual to whom compositions like the psalms can
with propriety be attributed : 8 and, generaUy, that the
psalms imply a stage of religious development far in advance
of that of the Davidic age.4 We do not go back on the
question of the religious development, further than to remind
the reader that, till lately, critical experts felt no difficulty
on this point, but would here ask whether the accounts we
have of David are such as to negative his authorship of
many of the psalms. We assume that the accounts we have
rest on good prophetic narratives, when the memory of
David's personality and reign was still fresh, and when his
virtues and failings were recorded with equal fidelity.6
Smith, p. 197) ; eighteen psalms in Book II. (" so again, in the 2nd Book,
the psalms ascribed to David . . . form a connected group," ibid.) ; one in
Book IV ; and several in Book V. — seventy-three in all.
1 Cf. 1 Chron. xxiii. 5 ; xxv. etc.
3 See above, p. 390 ; and cf. the remarks of Professor Robertson, Psalms,
pp. 92 ff.
8 Thus Reuss, Wellhausen, Cheyne, W. R. Smith, more mildly Driver,
eto. See Note A on The Critical Estimate of David.
4 Cf. Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, pp. 192 ff.
8 See above, p. 381. Cf. Robertson, Psalms, p. 843. See his whole chap.
xiii. on "David the Psalmist": also Perowne, Psalms, Introd. chap. i.
" David and the Lyric Poetry of the Hebrews" ; and Margoliouth, Lines of
Defence of the Biblical Revelation, pp. 194 ff.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 441
1. We begin with a brief survey of David's career.
(1) It will not be denied that, in the history, David's
character as a young man is as free from blemish as anyone
could wish. He is chosen by Samuel above the other sons
of Jesse on the ground that " man looketh on the outward
appearance, but Jehovah looketh on the heart."1 Saul's
servants attest regarding him that "he is cunning in
playing, and a mighty man of valour, and a man of war,
and prudent in speech, and a comely person, and Jehovah
is with him." 2 His character comes out at its best in his
encounter with Goliath.8 Here we see the whole man
revealed — his dauntlessness, his faith in God, his unerring
skill with the shng, his quiet modesty and decision of
character, the energy that slumbered behind. The women
who came out to meet him with chants and music only
echoed the universal feeling that in this stripling lay the
makings of the kingliest man in Israel*
(2) In his Hfe at the court of Saul, David's character is
equally admirable. As a popular hero he had no rival ; he
was fast friend to Jonathan ; he was set over the men of
war; he ate at the king's table, and soon became Saul's
son-in-law. But honours like these did not make his brain
whirl, or his feet slide. His record at court is a strictly
honourable one. He " went out whithersoever Saul sent
him, and behaved himself wisely ; and Saul set him over the
men of war, and it was good in the sight of all the people,
and also in the sight of Saul's servants." s Another record
about him is — and this is after the tide of favour had turned,
and he had become the object of Saul's deadly jealousy:
"And David behaved himself wisely in all his ways, and
Jehovah was with him. And when Saul saw that he
behaved himself very wisely, he stood in awe of him. But
all Israel and Judah loved David; for he went out and
came in before them."8 David's position, we see from the
narrative, soon became a very difficult one. Jonathan was
with him, but Saul had become his bitter enemy. His life
was sought, both openly and by plot and intrigue, and, with
the change in the king's mood, envious, rancorous tongues
would not be wanting to shoot their shafts at him. But,
amidst all, as David showed no vanity or pride in the day of
1 1 Sam. xvi. 7. 3 Sam. xvi. 18. 8 1 Sam. xvii.
4 1 Sam. xviii. 7. * 1 Sam. xviii. 5. 8 1 Sam. xviii. 14-16.

442 PSALMS AND PROPHETS-
his prosperity, so now he makes no attempt, by counter-
intrigue, to retaliate upon, or overthrow his enemies, in
the day of adversity. Saul deals wrongly towards him, but
he behaves with unimpeachable fidelity towards SauL His
life at court maintains the promise of his boyhood.
(3) David is next beheld in another Hght, as chief
of a band of outlaws, maintaining a precarious existence
among the caves and fastnesses of Southern Judea. The
position was not one of his seeking, but, driven into it, he
made the best of it a man could. His first task was to reduce
this band of broken, desperate men — many of them, probably,
like himself, the victims of misgovernment and oppression x
— into something Hke order and discipline, and in this, it is
evident, he admirably succeeded. His next task was to
find for them useful employment. The term " freebooter "
is sometimes apphed to David at this period of his career ; *
but if by " freebooter " is meant a chief subsisting by lawless
plunder, nothing could be further from the truth. The
employment David found for his men was of a different
order. Part of it, as we see from the case of Nabal, consisted
in acting as a kind of armed police, protecting the flocks and
herds of the districts in which they lived from the raids of
the Philistines, or of the robber-tribes of the desert. " The
men," said Nabal's servants, " were very good unto us, and
we were not hurt, neither missed we anything, so long as we
were conversant with them, when we were in the fields ; they
were a waU unto us both by night and by day, aU the while
we were with them keeping the sheep." 8 The other part of
their employment lay in direct war against the Philistines,
when the latter came out on their marauding expeditions.
The reHef of the town of Keilah is an instance.4 A man
would have been more than human had he made no slips,
committed no mistakes, in such straits ; but such as David's
were, e.g., his deception of Ahimelech and flight to Achish 6 —
an initial failure of faith — -they are impartiaUy recorded, and,
taken as a whole, the tenor of his Hf e in this period is singularly
to his credit. He was at the time the object of unremitting
persecution by SauL Against this one man, innocent of
1 1 Sam. xxii. 2. Cf. Maurice, Prophet and Kings, pp. 49 ff.
3 Cheyne speaks of him as " the versatile condottiere, chieftain, and
king." — Origin of Psalter, p. 211.
8 1 Sam. xxv. 15, 16.
4 1 Sam. xxiii. 8 1 Sam. xxi.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 443
crime, with his 600 followers, Saul was not ashamed to bring
into the field an army of 3000, hunting him from rock
to rock, and district to district, setting a price upon his
head, and gladly availing himself of information treacher
ously given by those with whom David was in hiding/'
In light of these facts, it is difficult to exaggerate the
nobleness of David's conduct. Not one act did he do, through
all these years of persecution, which might be construed
into rebellion against Saul ; and when twice, in the heat of
Saul's pursuit of him, that monarch's life was at his mercy,
twice, against the wishes of his foUowers, he magnani
mously spared him.2 It was another false step, but probably
prompted by the same desire to avoid colhsion with Saul,
when, in a mood of despair, he betook himself a second time
to Gath, there, by acceptance of Ziklag, to become a vassal
of the Philistines — an act which involved him in a course of
evasion impossible to justify, and led to complications that
nearly proved disastrous.8
(4) At length the discipline of trial came to an end, and
David is seen firmly planted on the throne as ruler. Saul
was slain on Gilboa, and in deep-toned and affecting strains,
remembering not the evil, but the good that was in the
fallen king, David poured out his soul in touching lament
for him and Jonathan. The way was now clear for David
to ascend the throne, and he did so, first at Hebron, as
king of Judah, then, seven years after, at Hebron again, as
king of aU Israel.4 His great powers were now to be dis
played to f uU advantage. Saul's reign, begun with promise,
had ended in darkness and disaster. His death left the
kingdom in disunity and disorganisation, a prey to Philistine
oppression ; religion was trampled under foot, and there was
no security for person or property. In no long space of
time, David had cleared the country of its invaders, had
restored to it its independence, had united its tribes, had
re-established its Hberties upon a just foundation, and had
done much to revive the waning influence of rehgion. With
true soldierly instinct, he fixed his eye on the rock fortress
of Jebus as the natural capital of the nation, and one of his
first steps was to possess himself of this stronghold.5 His
' Cf. 1 Sam. xxiii. 7 ff. ; xxiv. 2 ff. " 1 Sam. xxiv., xxvi.
• 1 Sam. xxvii., xxix. ff, 4 2 Sam. ii. 4, 11 ; v. 1 ff.
' 2 Sam. v. 1-10.

444 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
next care was to bring up the ark of God, and reorganise the
worship of Jehovah at Zion.1 Powerful confederations having
been formed to crush his rising power, he caUed out his forces,
and struck a succession of blows, which not only delivered
him from the danger, but made him overlord of the whole
country from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates.2 He had
even in contemplation the building of a temple ; but this
the divine voice forbade, while rewarding his intention with
the promise that his seed should sit upon his throne for
ever.8 Such were some of David's services to his age ; survey
ing them impartially, we cannot wonder that his memory
should be embalmed with Hvely gratitude in the minds
of the Israelites as that of their first great and god
like king. Over against these services are to be placed
the blots on his private life and reign: his polygamy —
no sin, however, by the then existing code — his over
indulgence to his children, some acts of severity in war, but,
above all, the one great, black crime of his adultery with
Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah.4 Nothing
can palliate this crime; yet even here, while condemning
David, it is necessary to try to be just. For a Pharaoh,
a Nebuchadnezzar, a Xerxes, or other Oriental monarch to
covet the wife of a subject, and give orders for the death of
her husband, would have seemed to most ancient historians
a venial enough fault, and they would probably not have
occupied half a dozen lines with the relation.6 It is the
Bibhcal history itself, by the bold relief into which it throws
this shameful incident, — by its impartiality in narrating,
in denouncing, and in declaring the punishment of this sin
of David, — which makes it bulk so largely in our minds,
and inspires us with such just horror in regard to it. But
it is not to be forgotten that the same book which tells us of
1 2 Sam. vi 3 2 Sam. viii.
8 2 Sam. vii. 4 2 Sam. xi.
8 Cf. the remarks of Margoliouth in his Lines of Defence of the Biblical
Revelation, pp. 209-10. He says : " If the worst act of David's life, the
painful story of Bathsheba, be considered, the underlying character which
David exhibits is much better than that displayed by most men in any age.
Max Duncker remarks that the crime which caused David so much penitence
and contrition was one of which, probably, no other Oriental monarch would
have thought anything, and, if there be any truth in history, it would have
occasioned few scruples to most defenders of the faith." See tire whole
passage.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 445
David's fall, tells also of his bitter and anguished repentance
for the faU,1 and of the sad and heavy strokes of retribution
by which it was avenged. The story of Absalom's rebellion
is a long drawn out commentary on the words in which
Nathan announced to David the sorrow that would fall upon
his house ; 2 but it is also one of the finest revelations in the
history of the piety and submissiveness of the man who is said
to be " after God's own heart." 3 David's sins were great, but
we may trust a Carlyle or a Maurice for a just estimate of
his character,4 rather than the caviller whose chief dehght
is to magnify his faults.
2. In this varied, many-sided, strangely-chequered life,
with its startling vicissitudes, its religious aspiration and
endeavour, its heights and depths of experience of good
and evil, — with its love of music and gift of lyric song, —
with the incitements to the use of that gift springing from
the companionship of prophets like Samuel and Nathan,
from the promises they gave, and the hopes for the future
of the kingdom they inspired, — can anyone say that there
is not abundant material for psalm-composition, or sufficient
motive or skill to engage in it? Had the anointing to be
king, the trials at Saul's court, the vicissitudes of the
wilderness persecution, the bringing-up of the ark, the
promises of Nathan, the rebellion of Absalom, the sin with
Bathsheba itself and the penitence that followed, no power
in them to draw forth such psalmody? It is with these
very occasions that the psalms ascribed to David in the first
books are traditionally connected. Can we permit ourselves
to believe, without convincing evidence, that tradition was
all wrong about this, and that, as Professor W. R. Smith and
others will have it, David's religious muse found utterance
rather " in sportful forms of unrestrained mirth," 6 so that
even in the time of Amos, David appears " as the chosen
model of the dilettante nobles of Ephraim, who lay stretched
on beds of ivory, anointed with the choicest perfumes, and
mingling music with their cups in the familiar manner of
Oriental luxury."6 Let those beheve this who can: we
1 2 Sam. xii. 2 2 Sam. xii. 10-12. 8 1 Sam. xiii. 14.
4 Carlyle, Heroes, p. 72 ; Maurice, Prophets and Kings, pp. 60 ff. Of.
Sjtanley, Jewish Church, i. pp. 97 ff.
'O.T. in J. C.,p. 205.
8 Ibid. This is a sweeping inference to draw from the statement in
.4mos vi. 5, that the nobles of Samaria invented, instruments of music "like,.

446 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
cannot. David's history, whether we gather it from " Saul-
Source," or " David-Source," or Jerusalem-Source," 1 presents
no resemblance to this picture of dandified frivolity. Are
we to suppose that when David left Nathan after receiving
the promises of 2 Sam. vn.,2 it was to give expression to
his adoring feelings in sportful ditties — or that Amos
thought he did?
In asking whether David actually wrote psalms, we
seem to find firm foothold in one composition, the genuine
ness of which it is difficult to dispute — Ps. xviii There
are two recensions of this psalm, one in the Psalter, the
other in 2 Sam. xxn., and both ascribe the authorship to
David. Internal evidence so strongly bears out the claim,
that, till recently, few were bold enough to challenge it.3
Certainly, if any psalm is David's, it is this one, and some,
as Schultz, who latterly allowed him no other (earlier he
had conceded ten),4 make exception of this. The psalm
^is interesting in many ways; not least by its strong asser
tion that Jehovah alone is God (ver. 31). Its spiritual
strain in such expressions as, "As for God, His way is
perfect," the aUusion to a "word of Jehovah" which is
" tried " (ver. 30), the reference to the promises to David
and his seed (ver. 50), etc., are stumbling-blocks in the
way of the modern theory, which compel resort to a
later dating. Yet, if this psalm is given up, it is difficult
to see what reliance can be put on any nation's recoUections
of its great authors or poets. If, however, David wrote this
long and virile psalm, the probabilities are enormous that
he wrote others : the question only is, how many ? Baethgen
is not sure of more than three (Ps. hi., iv., xviii.) ; Ewald,
who had a good feeling for style, gave him eleven, with
fragments of others; Hitzig, fourteen; Bleek, "no in
considerable number"; while Delitzsch extended the
David," and surely as unwarrantable as sweeping. See the remarks of
Professor Robertson in Poetry and Religion of the Psalms, p. 339. Professor
Robertson points out that the David of the prophets is just the ' ' traditional "
David (idealised) (pp. 336 ff.). Besides, as pointed out above, the image of
David had by that time been long fixed in the history.
1 On these see above, pp. 77, 386.
a This chapter is supposed by the critics to have received Deuteronomic
revision, but its fundamental features can hardly be contested.
8 It is hardly necessary to mention names, for the psalm has been given
to David by nearly all writers from De Wette downwards.
4 See above, p. 434. Cheyne will not allow Ps. xviii. to be older than Josiah.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 447
number to over forty.1 In the uncertainty attaching
to the titles, it is doubtful if any definite conclusions
as to number can be reached; though we are disposed
to allow more weight than it is now customary to do
to the titles of at least the first and second books,
which seem to have formed originally (with exclusion of
the separate coHection, Ps. xlii.-l.) a collection of Davidic
psalms.2 In any case we are probably warranted in holding
that the number of Davidic psalms is not small, and includes
most of those which have, with reasonable unanimity, been
ascribed to the royal singer. Besides psalms which reflect
the writer's personal experiences — under persecution, in
penitence, in flight from Absalom, in gratitude for de
liverance—there are others evidently composed for special
occasions, as, e.g., the bringing up of the ark to Zion
(Ps. xxiv.). Most naturally, also, as has been already
suggested, those psalms which mention the "tabernacle"
on Zion (Pss. xv., xxvh.) may be referred to this reign.3
Be the number of Davidic psalms, however, greater or
smaller, the inference as to the level of religious belief
and practice is not much affected. As anyone can see
in reading the psalms, practically the same elevated idea
1 Ewald ascribes to David Pss. iii., iv., vii., viii., xi., xv., xviii., xix. 1-6,
xxiv., xxix., xxxii., ci. etc. ; Riehm most of the above, with Pss. xxiii.,
li. etc. ("Many of those psalms," he says, "which bear David's name,
can be ascribed to him with full certainty." — Einleit. ii. p. 190) ; Bleek
a number more, as Pss. Iv., Ix., lxi., lxiii. etc.
2Cf. W. R. Smith, O.T. in J. C, pp. 197-201, 214. There is the
possibility of underestimating as well as overestimating the titles. Cf.
Margoliouth's spirited remarks in his Lines of Defence, with illustrations,
pp. 199 ff. This writer makes an ingenious use of the argument from
' ' silence " in the psalms, which may be commended to those who are
disposed to build much on that argument (pp. 182 ff.). Mr. Gladstone's
suggestive section on the Psalms in his Impregnable Rock may also be
compared. ^The word "temple'- in Pss. v. 7, xxvii. 4, is by no means decisive
against Davidic authorship. God's house at Shiloh is already called
" temple " (see above, p. 172). We can understand a sacred tent which
has some degree of permanence, and is regarded as the stated abode of
Jehovah, and the place of His worship, being called a " temple " ; but it is
difficult to think of a temple like Solomon's being spoken of as a "tent."
In Ps. xxvii. the words are used together (vers. 4, 5, 6). If it is said that
the word "tent" is applied to the temple with a reminiscence of the older
tabernacle, this implies the reality of that older tabernacle, as contended for
in a previous chapter (Chap. VI.). It is to be remembered also that the
proper temple of God is thought of as in heaven (Ps. xi. 4). In Ps.
lxxxiv. 1 the word rendered "tabernacles" is different ("dwelling-
places ").

448 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
of God, the same zeal for righteousness, the same spirit
of trust and confidence in Jehovah, the same religious
aspirations and affections, are present in all. The fact
affords a valuable corroboration of our previous conclusions.
III. Collection of the Psalms and Place in Canon
The conclusions we have reached as to the existence of
Davidic and pre-exilian psalms seem to us borne out by the
facts known as to the history of the Psalter, and the place
which the psalms hold in the Canon. The periods to which
psalm-composition is chiefly referred by those who recognise
pre-exilian psalms are, after David, the reigns of Jehoshaphat
and Hezekiah.1 Several psalms are with much confidence
connected with the great deliverance from Sennacherib in
the latter reign (Pss. xlvi., xlviii. etc.). However this may
be, it is not disputed that the process of the coUection of
psalms was a gradual one, and that at one time separate
coUections, as of Psalms of David (cf. Ps. lxxii 20), of
Korahite and Asaphite psalms, etc., were in circulation.2
Then, with the addition of later psalms, came, at a
subsequent date, the division of the whole into five books,
after the model of the Pentateuch.3 To the Psalter,
thus completed, a leading place was assigned among the
Hagiographa, or Sacred Writings — the third part of the
Jewish Canon.4
When were these coUections, or the earlier of them,
made ? And when was the Canon of the psalms completed ?
The modern view, we have seen, relegates all to the period
after the exile; but, as respects at least the Davidic
collections — probably also the Korahite and Asaphite
collections — in their original form, this cannot be proved,
1 Thus Delitzsch, Perowne, etc.
a See W. R. Smith, as above. It is significant that we have no trace of
the Korahites as singers under the second temple, as we have of the
Asaphites (cf. Neh. xi. 22). Professor W. R. Smith's supposition that the
Korahites were developed after Nehemiah's time (of which there is no proof),
and were again obsolete as singers by the time of the Chronicler (p. 204), is
far-fetched, and depends solely on the assumption that the Korahite col
lection is post-exilian. The fact mentioned is rather a proof that it was not.
8 As mentioned earlier (p. 197) the five books are Ps. i.-xli. ¦ xlii.-
lxxii. ; 1 gxiii.-lxxxix. ; xc.-cvi. ; cvii.-cl.
4 On the subject of the collection of the psalms, and the closing of the
Canon, cf. Kirkpatrick, Psalms, pp. xiv. ff. ; Robertson, Hist, and Reliqion
of the Psalms, ohaps. iv.-vi. ; W. R. Smith, as above ; Driver, etc.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 449
and many considerations speak to the contrary. We touch
only on single points.
1. At the lower end, the Books of Maccabees presuppose
the Psalter. The first book (about 100 B.c.) quotes freely
Ps. Ixxix. 2, 3 as from Scripture (1 Mace. vii. 17) ; and the
second book speaks of the writings in the third division of
the Canon loosely as " the works of David," showing that
the psalms then held a leading place in this division (cf.
Luke xxiv. 44).
2. The Psalter was admittedly complete, and divided
into its five books, at the time of the Septuagint transla
tion, which, it is aUowed, cannot be placed lower than the
second half of the second century B.C. (before 130 B.C.),
and may possibly be a good deal earher.1 It is evident that
the Psalter must already have been recognised as part of
the Canon for a considerable time in order to its being
included in this translation. An important testimony to
the antiquity of many of the psalms is afforded by the fact
that certain of the musical and liturgical headings — e.g.,
the common one, "For the Chief Musician"2 — are unin
telligible to the Greek translators.
3. We have indubitable evidence in the Prologue to
the Greek translation of the work of Jesus, the son of
Sirach (Ecclesiasticus), made by his grandson, 132 B.c, that
the Canon in its three divisions was substantially completed,
not only in the translator's own time, but in that of his
grandfather, the author of the book (about 200 B.C.), and
the work itself gives internal evidence of the use of the
psalms. This is borne out by the recovery of portions of
the Hebrew text.8
1 The LXX translation of the law was made about the middle of the
third century B.C., but there is no clear evidence as to when the work
was completed by the translation of the Hagiographa. The language of the
grandson of the son of Sirach, however, implies that a translation already
existed in his day, and other facts support this conclusion. Ehrt, in his
work on the subject (quoted by Robertson, Psalms, p. 87), believes that the
original work of Ben Sirach implies the use of the LXX version of the psalms.
8 This heading is prefixed to fifty-five psalms, of which fifty-two are found
in Books I.— III., and three only in Book V. (elsewhere only in Hab. iii 19).
It is misunderstood by the translators, and had evidently long passed out of use.
8 The grandson refers in his Prologue to "the law, and the prophecies,
and the rest of the books" (i.e., a definite number), an'd speaks of his grand
father's acquaintance with the same. This is a strong point with those who
argue against Maccabsean psalms (e.g., Riehm, Baethgen, Kirkpatrick). A
corroboration of the statement is afforded by the recovery of portions of the
20

450 PSALMS AND PROPHETS-
4. The Books of Chronicles (not later than about 330
b.c.) know the Psalter, and, as before seen,1 carry back
psalmody and the musical arrangements of the sanctuary
to the time of David. In 1 Chron. xvi. 7-36 is given a
long psalm as illustrative of the kind of praise offered at
the bringing up of the ark to Zion. This piece is found on
inspection to be composed of passages from Pss. cv., xcvi.,
and cvi., and concludes with the doxology at the end of Ps.
cvi. which marks the close of Book IV. of the Psalter.2
The inference is natural that the division into books was
already made in the time of the Chronicler.
5. The Book of Jonah, which Professor Robertson places
provisionally in the fifth century B.C., and which, in any case,
is earlier than the close of the prophetic Canon, contains a
prayer of Jonah (chap. ii. 2-10), admittedly based on passages
from different parts of the Psalter.8 This implies some
collection of these psalms.
6. It was shown that Jeremiah (chap. xvii. 8) unmistak
ably quotes from Ps. i, which is generally acknowledged to
be an introduction to the first collection of Davidic psalms
(cf. Ezek. xlvii. 12).4 This collection, therefore, is pre
sumably earlier. Further, the formula of thanksgiving in
Jer. xxxiii 11, " Give thanks to Jehovah of hosts, for Jehovah
is good : for His mercy endureth for ever," is found only in
psalms included in Books IV. and V. of the Psalter.
7. It was seen likewise that the musical arrangements
of the second temple were an inheritance from the period
before the exile.6 It is reasonable to suppose that the
liturgical use of the psalms was so also.
The conclusion is not overstrained that the basis of the
Psalter was already laid before the exile — how much earlier
it is impossible to tell, but the Davidic collections may go
original text of Ecclesiasticus. Dr. Schechter holds that the allusions
to the psalms in the work extend over " all the books and groups of the
psalms." "The impression produced ... is that of reading the work of
a post-canonical author, who already knew his Bible, and was continually
quoting it " (in Kirkpatrick, Psalms, p. xlviii).
1 See above, p. 440.
3 Professor W. R. Smith argues that the doxology is an original part of
the psalm, and does not carry with it the inference that the Psalter was
already formed. Ha thinks that doxologies were appended only to the first
three books (p. 196), but admits that "the majority of modern scholars
are against him in this opinion " (p. 194).
8 Cf. Robertson, pp. 103 ff. 4 See above, p. 439.
8 See above, p. 439.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 451
back a long way — and that the psalms, especially in the
earher books, may fairly be used as evidence of the type
of piety in godly circles in Israel from the days of David
downwards. The witness they bear in no wise agrees with
the Wellhausen representation.

Part II
The Predictive Element in Prophecy
Hebrew prophecy will be acknowledged by most to be
a perfectly unique phenomenon in the history of rehgions.
Whatever the etymology of the name (Nabi),1 the prophet
himself stands clearly out as one who is conscious of receiv
ing a message directly from Jehovah, which he is com
missioned to impart to men.2 In its beginnings prophecy
goes as far back as revelation,3 but the founder of the
prophetic order in the stricter sense is Samuel.4 We may
pass over the development of prophecy in the intervening
period — over even the great figures of Elijah and Elisha,
who are, however, acting rather than teaching prophets, —
and come at once to the full bloom of prophecy in the age
of the writing prophets. Here, plainly, the nature of
prophecy can be studied to best advantage.
It is not denied that genuine prophecy presupposed in
the person exercising the prophetic function a special natural
endowment, or that it was psychologically conditioned. Its
natural basis was a species of genius, which we are still not
slow to recognise in those who possess it, enabling them to
see deep into the heart of things, where others only behold the
surface, and to speak the word necessary for guidance, where
others grope and stumble (cf. Ps. lxxiv. 9). While, how
ever, this gift of " geniality," of insight, of divining intuition,
1 Gesenius, Kuenen, Oehler, etc., derive the word from a root meaning
" to bubble" ; others explain differently.
2 Augustine calls the prophet enunciator verborum dei hominibus.
8 All the great revelation-figures (Abraham, Jacob, Moses) are represented
as prophesying, and Abraham and Moses are designated prophets. In
Mosaic times, cf. the interesting episode of Eldad and Medad and the
seventy elders in Num. xi. 24-29. Under the Judges Deborah was a
prophetess. Cf. A. B. Davidson, O.T. Prophecy, pp. 17 ff.
4 1 Sam. iii. 19-21 ; ix. 9. To Samuel belongs, apparently, the insti
tution of the prophetic guilds.

452 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
belongs to the prophetic endowment, it is far from con
stituting the whole of it.1 The genuine prophet is conscious
of being laid hold of by the Spirit of God as other men are
not ; of receiving a message from Jehovah which he knows is
not the product of his own thoughts, but recognises as God's
word coming to him ; which is imparted to him with perfect
clearness and overpowering certainty ; and which brings with
it the call and constraint to deliver it to those for whom it
is meant. The claim of the prophets to speak the word of
God was sustained by the godliness of their character,2 by the
self -attesting power of their message, as a word instinct with
spirit and life, and fitted to the time and need for which it
was spoken, by its coherence with previous revelation, and,
finally, by the sure fulfilment of their word, so far as it was
predictive.8 This brings us to the special topic we are to
consider — the predictive element in prophecy.
I. Supernatural Prediction an Element ln Prophecy
L" It was certainly an error of the older apologetic to plaee
the essence of prophecy, as was often done, in prediction.
The prophet was in the first instance a man speaking to his
own time. His message was called forth by, and had its
-adaptation to, some real and urgent need of his own age : it
was the word of God to that people, time, and occasion.
It needs, therefore, in order to be properly understood, to
be put in its historical setting, and interpreted through
1 Apart from more naturalistic writers, this is the view favoured by
Giesebrecht in his Die Berufgabung der Alttest. Propheten, pp. 32-36, 72-77,
etc. (cf. Preface). Prediction (which in special cases is admitted) is
explained "out of a natural faculty with which God has endowed the
prophet " (p. 73) — a ' ' gift of Ahnungsvermbgens " (pp. 74, 76, 77, etc.). But
Giesebrecht goes on to ascribe so much to the "supernatural" action of
God's Spirit in heightening and directing this natural faculty for the ends
of revelation (pp. 77, 87, 97, etc.), that his view comes to differ little
in principle from that indicated above. See below, p. 456.
2 Giesebrecht says : " Kuenen himself concedes to the prophets a surpass
ing piety and moral earnestness. Intentional deception is in the nature
of the case completely excluded. The high state of their intelligences, and
the stage of clearest religious knowledge and finest moral judgment attained
by them excites Kuenen's admiration. Is it credible that these men were
self-deceived ? " — As above, p. 16.
8 On the supernatural element in prophecy, see the works on prophecy by
A. B. Davidson, Riehm, Delitzsch, Orelli, etc., and Oehler, Theol. of O.T. , ii.
pp. 313 ff. Cf. also the striking remarks of Kautzsch in his Das Bleibende
Bedeutung des A.T., pp. 29 ff.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 453
that. It must be put to the account of modern criticism
that it has done much to foster this better way of regarding
prophecy, and has in consequence greatly vivified the study
of the prophetic writings, and promoted a better under
standing of their meaning.
On the other hand, the modern view, in its desire to
assimilate prophecy as much as possible to the utterances
of natural human genius, does palpable violence to scriptural
teaching in denying, or making Hght of, this element of
prediction. Not, indeed, that, up to a certain point,
prediction is altogether denied. The prophets, it is aUowed,
had a pecuhar — some would perhaps concede supernatural —
insight into the character of God and the laws of His moral
government, and, in the strength of their assurance of the
divine righteousness, did not hesitate to draw what seemed
to them the necessary deductions,1 announcing chastise
ment and ruin as the result of national transgression, and
proclaiming the certainty of the ultimate triumph of God's
kingdom.^ And, beyond question, they did this. But it is
just as certain, if we are to do justice to the full nature of
Bibhcal prophecy, that we must recognise a great deal
more. The prophets do more than simply give forecasts
of the general course of God's providence which, as
deductions of their own mind, might easily be, and it is con
tended very frequently were, mistaken. How much more
they did give can only be seen by looking at the prophecies
themselves. It was, in truth, in a sense inevitable that prediction
1 Kuenen, as shown in our first chapter, and with him most of the
moderns (Wellhausen, Stade, Duhm, etc.), deny the supernatural character
of prophecy altogether (Prophets arid Prophecy, pp. 4, 94-5, 227, etc. See
above, pp. 12, 1 3). Kuenen denies even the truth of the prophetic conception
of the divine righteousness, and the predictions based thereon. ' ' While
paying homage to the earnestness of the prophet's conception of Jahveh, we
must positively deny its truth. . . . The prophetical prediction of the
future now presents itself to us as the necessarily incorrect conclusion
drawn from premises which themselves were only half correct" (pp. 354, 359).
2 Ewald represents perhaps the high-water mark of this way of regard
ing prophecy. "What the prophet can," he says, "with perfect right,
announce as the word of his God, is in its contents nothing but the
application of some general divine truth to a given moral condition, or a
clear contemplation as to the confusions or unevennesses of moral life before
him, springing out of the clear light of the Spirit. What belongs to it falls
within the province of the purer, i.e., the divine Spirit; and if a prophet
knows anything more, and can give answers to other questions, this is
something accidental." — Die Propheten, i. p. 12 (E.T. p. 19).

454 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
should enter into such prophecy as we have in Scripture.
[ihe prophet spoke, indeed, to his own time, but his message
had of necessity an aspect of warning and promise for the
future. It contained a declaration of what God would do
in the event of disobedience or obedience. Its cogency
depended on such announcements as it gave being rehable.
Prophecy was occupied, moreover, not simply with the
immediate temporal consequences of the nation's conduct.
Its supreme interest was in the kingdom of God, and its
eye was ever directed to the ultimate triumph of that
kingdom. Whatever promises it gave, or hopes it held
out, had all reference to that ultimate consummation. It
could not, therefore, in the nature of the case, ignore the
future^ It had statements to make regarding it, growing
out of the peculiar exigencies of the time, which would
have had little worth had they been simply forecasts of the
prophet's own mind. Their whole value depended on their
having on them the seal of true divine revelation.jThis
is the simple and complete answer to those who meet the
contention that BibHcal prophecy contains prediction by
saying that such a view puts prophecy on a level with
" soothsaying." This is in no wise the case. Prediction
is never introduced as a mere wonder, or on its own
account, but always in connection with, and with a direct
bearing upon, the kingdom of God.2 Soothsaying, on the
contrary, has no moral root, and subserves no wider moral
purpose; but is the result of a mere curious prying into
the future, and involves the use of superstitious, and
generally irrational means, to attain that end. Its chief
value is the testimony it bears to the inextinguishable
WCf. Dr. A. B. Davidson, 0. T. Prophecy, p. 294 : " It is now a common-
I place that prophecy did not, even in the main, consist of prediction. The
/ commonplace is true, if predictions of mere contingent occurrences of a private
| nature are meant. Prophecy.was occupied with the destinies of the king-
I dom of God. But the essence of prophecy is prediction — prediction not
| only of the far distant consummation and glory of the kingdom, but also
! of the nearer steps necessary to this, the downfall of the State, and the
instruments who shall accomplish it." Cf. pp. 89, 96-98, etc. : Theol. of O.T. ,
p. 177. 3 Cf. Kautzsch, Das Bleibende Bedeutung, p. 31. The distinguishing
mark, he says, by which Hebrew prophecy is raised high as heaven above
all those heathen phenomena is : " This prophecy stands in the servioe of a
divine plan of salvation, and indeed in a service from which it cannot with
draw itself." It is the more singular that Kautzsch should speak slight
ingly of prediction (p. 30).

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 455
craving of men's hearts for some kind of revelation of God
and the future.1

v II. Reality of Supeenatueal Prediction
Many are the straits to which rationalism is reduced, as
Kuenen's large volume testifies,2 in its attempt to ehminate
the predictive element from prophecy. So deeply inwoven,
however, is prediction into the texture of Scripture, that
try as the critics may, they cannot altogether get rid of
this unwelcome proof of the presence of the supernatural.
We vividly recall the impression made upon our mind
by the first reading of the book so often referred to in
these pages — WeUhausen's History of Israel. The book is
an attempt to give a thoroughly rationalising account of
Israel's history, but the effect it produced was to make us
feel as never before the impossibility of every such natural
explanation. The supernatural was constantly thrusting in
its head, notwithstanding all the critic's attempts to keep
it out. Was it, e.g., the Exodus from Egypt ? The people
were led by Moses round by the Red Sea, but by a singular
coincidence — a marvellous piece of good fortune — the sea
dried just in time to let them through. " His design," we
are told, " was aided in a wholly unlooked-for way, by a
marvellous occurrence quite beyond his control, and which
no sagacity could possibly have foreseen."3 Was it the
dehverance of Jerusalem from Sennacherib ? Isaiah alone
of aU the people retained his confidence in God's help, and
gave Hezekiah in the name of Jehovah the most explicit
assurance that the city would not be taken — that the
enemy would not shoot an arrow into it, nor bring up
a shield against it.4 He predicted this in words of scornful
exultation, and staked his prophetic reputation on the result.
"And thus," says Wellhausen, "it proved in the issue.
By a still unexplained catastrophe, the main army of
1 In part, as Deut. xvii. 10 ff. shows, prophecy was given fo satisfy the
need for which an illegitimate satisfaction was sought in heathen mantic.
On the contrast with heathen and other forms of prediction, cf. Orelli,
Prophecy, p. 23 ; Kautzsch, as above, pp. 30, 31.
2 Cf. the severe criticism of Kuenen's work in Giesebrecht, pp. 3-6.
• Hist, of Israel, p. 433. Others, as before shown, dispose of the miracle
by denying the fact.
1 Isa. xxxvii. 26-36.

45<5 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
Sennacherib was annihilated on the frontier between
Egypt and Palestine, and Jerusalem was freed from
danger."1 Is it the prediction of the downfall and
captivity of Israel by Amos ? This prophet, Wellhausen
admits, "prophesied as close at hand the downfall of the
kingdom, which just at that moment was rejoicing most in
the consciousness of power, and the deportation of the
people to a far-off northern land."2 We have but to
contrast this uniform tone of certainty of the Hebrew
prophets with the language, e.g., of a John Bright during
the progress of the American civil war, to see how great is
the difference between prophecy and political perception,
even when the latter is quickened by the most intense
consciousness of the righteousness of a cause. " What the
revolt is to accomplish," said Mr. Bright, " is still hidden
from our sight ; and I will abstain now, as I have always
done, from predicting what is to come. I know what I hope
for — what I shall rejoice in — but I know nothing of future
events which will enable me to express a confident opinion."8
These instances would be remarkable enough if they
stood alone ; the disconcerting thing for the newer theory of
prophecy is that they do not stand alone. The Bible is full
of cases of the same kind. This can be maintained notwith
standing all theories of the critics as to the dates of the
books. It was when kings and nobles were lying on beds of
ivory, and indulging in every Bpecies of dissipation and
amusement, that Amos, as just mentioned, wrote : " There
fore will I cause you to go into captivity beyond Damascus,
saith Jehovah, whose name is the God of hosts." 4 It was
a century and more before the captivity of Judah that
Micah foretold: "Therefore shall Zion for your sake be
ploughed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps. . . .
1 Hist, of Israel, p. 483. Kuenen admits the oracle to be indubitably
fenuine, but attempts to undermine the fulfilment (pp. 229 ff.). Professor
[. P. Smith has more than doubts about both oracle and history.
3 Ibid. p. 470. Giesebrecht says: "They [the predictions] have often
for their content occurrences of which at the time of the prophet no one
could have any idea : so Amos, in a peaceful, nay, seemingly illustrious
time, predicts the Assyrian campaign, till then unheard of" (p. 73). This
writer, as before stated, finds the explanation of these predictions (which
were not always fulfilled) in the divine quickening of a natural faculty of
divination or presentiment, of which sporadic examples are found elsewhere
(pp. 73-76).
8 Speech, June 30, 1863. 4 Amos v. 27.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 457
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, 0 daughter of Zion,
like a woman in travail ; for now shalt thou go forth out
of the city, and shalt dwell in the field, and shalt come even
unto Babylon"— even this is not aU, but— " there shalt thou
be delivered; there shall Jehovah redeem thee from the
hand of thine enemies."1 Jeremiah's prophecies belong to
the last years of the kingdom of Judah, but it is impossible
to erase from them the prediction of the seventy years of
captivity— fulfilled to a year from the date of the first
deportation (606-536 b.c.).2 "This whole land shall be a
desolation, and an astonishment, and these nations shall
serve the king of Babylon seventy years. And it shaU
come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I
will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, saith
Jehovah, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans ;
and I will make it desolate for ever." 8 The second portion
of Isaiah is assigned to the exile ; but it is not in the second
portion, but in the first, a hundred and twenty years before
the exile (contemporary with Micah), that we find this
remarkable prediction of the captivity : " Then said I, Lord,
how long ? And He answered, Until cities be waste with
out inhabitant, and houses without man, and the land
become utterly waste, and Jehovah have removed men far
away. . . . And if there be yet a tenth in it, it shall again
be eaten up : as a terebinth, and as an oak, whose stock
remaineth, when they are felled : so the holy seed is the
stock thereof."4 And again, when Hezekiah had showed
his treasures to the messengers of the king of Babylon :
" Behold the days come, that all that is in thine house, and
that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day,
shaU be carried into Babylon : nothing shaU be left, saith
Jehovah." 6 Even accepting the view that the second part of
1_Mio. iii. 12 ; iv. 10. There seems no ground, except the prophecy
itself, for challenging the genuineness of these passages. Cf. Davidson,
0. T. Prophecy, p. 264 ; Orelli, Minor Prophets, p. 206. See below, p. 464.
2 There would be no objection to taking the number as a round number,
but, reckoning from the initial deportation under Jehoiakim in 606 B.C.
(cf. 2 Kings xxiv. 1 ; 2 Chron. xxxvi. 6ff. ; Dan. i. Iff.), it seems to be
exact. 3 Jer. xxv. 11, 12.
4 Isa. vi. 11-13. Cf. the R.V. margin of ver. 18 : "But yet in it shall
be a tenth, and it shall return, and shall be eaten up." See the remarks of
Professor G. A. Smith, Isaiah, i. pp. 403-4.
6 Isa. xxxix. 5-7. These passages show that too much weight must not
be laid on Isaiah's supposed belief in the inviolability of Zion.

458 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
Isaiah (chaps. xl.-lxvi) is post-exiHan — though we think this
extremely doubtful at least for portions of it J — we do not
thereby get rid of prediction. Cyrus may already, as the
phrase is, have been " above the horizon " when the prophet
wrote, pursuing his conquests in the north; but the most
brilhant part of his career was yet to come. Mighty Babylon
had not yet fallen,2 nor had Israel been restored. But it is
these things which form the burden of the prophecy. We
cannot, moreover, but be struck by the fact that it is pre
cisely in this second part of Isaiah that the fulfilment of
prophecy is insisted on as the clearest proof that Jehovah is
the true and only God.8 Daniel is a book keenly assailed by
the critics, and undoubtedly presents difficulties on the view
that it was written in its present form in Daniel's own age.4
Yet, on any theory of date, one cannot but feel that it is
only by forced and unnatural shifts — such as would not be
tolerated for a moment in the " traditional " apologist — that
an interpretation of the " four empires " can be got which
does not include the Roman,6 or that makes the " seventy
weeks," or four hundred and ninety years, of Daniel, end
in the age of Antiochus Epiphanes (171-164 B.C.).6 On the
other hand, it is the case that, reckoning from the decree of
Artaxerxes and the mission of Ezra (458 B.C.), the sixty-nine
weeks that were to elapse till " the anointed one (Messiah)
the prince" (Dan. ix. 26), run out in 29 A.D., the year of
Christ's entrance on His public ministry. If to these be
1 The question of the authorship of this second part of Isaiah is one
which, as Professor G. A. Smith truly says, " can be looked at calmly. It
touches no dogma of the Christian faith." — Isaiah, i. p. 402. The question,
however, becomes more complicated when the second part also is broken up,
and it is recognised that there are at least some sections of the latter which
cannot, with any plausibility, be placed in the exile (e.g., chaps, lvii., Iviii.,
lxv. etc.). See Note B on the Unity of Second Isaiah.
2 Isa. xiii., e.g., is a limelight prophetio picture of that catastrophe, but
it is not suggested that it was written after the event.
3 Isa. xii. 21-23, 26-28 ; xliii. 9-12 ; xliv. 7, 8, 25-28 ; xiv. 11, 19, 21 ;
xlvi. 9 ; xlviii. 3-7, 14-16. Cf. A. B. Davidson, 0. T. Prophecy, pp.
97, 294.
4 See above, p. 428. The chief difficulty is the extremely detailed
character of the prediction in chap, xi., which, on so large a scale, is out
of harmony with the analogy of prophecy elsewhere, and may point to later
redaction. 6 Dan. ii. 31 ff. ; vii. 1 ff.
8 Dan. ix. 24 ff. On the divergent views on these prophecies, of. Driver,
Daniel, pp. 94 ff. ; 143 ff.; Pusey, Daniel, pp. 91 ff, 171, 197-217. See
Note C on the Prophecies of Daniel.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 459
added the prophecies about the nations, which fiU so large
a space in the books — the prophecy of Nahum against
Nmeveh, e.g., or the prophecies against Egypt, Babylon,
Tyre, and other surrounding kingdoms1 — above all, the
predictions respecting the captivities and future of the
Jewish nation, their scattering through all lands, yet preser
vation as a distinct people, with promises of latter-day
restoration2 and blessing — we have a mass of prediction,
not soothsaying, but all of it standing in strictest subordina
tion to the ends of the kingdom of God, which, taken
together, is absolutely unique, and wholly inexplicable except
under supernatural conditions. The element of prediction
is not less conspicuously present in the New Testament.
Many of the parables, announcements, and discourses of
Jesus are predictive — we instance only the great discourse
on the destruction of Jerusalem and the last things ; 8 pre
diction is interwoven with the narrative of the Acts 4 and
with the Epistles ; 6 the Apocalypse is a book of prediction in
symbohc form.6 If everything of the nature of predictive
prophecy is expunged from the Bible, it wiU astonish us to
find how much has gone with it.
Allusion was made in an earlier chapter7 to what is
distinctively known as Messianic prophecy, and, in con
nection therewith, to the firm assurance which the prophets
entertained that their religion — the religion of Jehovah —
woulft become the religion of the whole earth. This faith
they held fast when everything was against them — when
their own nation, with which the promises were bound up,
was sinking in ruin, or was in exile. Yet this unprece
dented thing has been fulfiUed, so far, at least, that Israel's
religion, in its New Testament form, has now become the
religion of all the great civihsed and progressive nations of
the world, and is spreading itself ever more widely in heathen
1 Kuenen and others contest the fulfilment of some of these predictions.
See Note D in Kuenen on Unfulfilled Prophecies.
2 It will be seen below (p. 464) that nothing can now be inferred as to
the precise form in which these prophecies will be fulfilled. See a dis
cussion of the subject in Dr. A. B. Davidson's 0. T. Prophecy, pp. 468 ff.
"Matt. xxiv. Dr. Davidson says: "So far as we see, prediction was
actually an element in the activity of most of the prophets, even in that of
the prophet of Nazareth"— O.T. Prophecy, p. 89.
4 E.g., Acts xi. 27-30 ; xxi. 10, 11 ; xxvii. 10, 21, 22.
8 E.g., Rom. xi. 23, 24 ; 2 Thess. ii. 1-10.
8 Rev. i. 1-3. 7 Cf. above, p. 34.

460 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
lands. On Messianic prophecy in the stricter sense it is
worth while quoting some striking sentences from Professor
R. Flint. After remarking on the " marveUous unity, self-
consistency, and comprehensiveness " of the Old Testament,
and pointing out that "it is at the same time a system
which is not self-contained, but one of which all the parts
contribute, each in its place, to raise, sustain, and guide
faith in the coming of a mysterious and mighty Saviour — a
perfect Prophet, perfect Priest, and perfect King, such as
Christ alone of aU men can be supposed to have been,"
Professor FHnt goes on to say : " This broad general fact—
this vast and strange correlation of correspondence — cannot
be in the least affected by questions of the ' higher criti
cism ' as to the authorship, time of origination, and mode
of composition of the various books of the Old Testament.
. . . Answer all these questions in the way which the
boldest and most rationalistic criticism of Germany or
Holland ventures to suggest; accept in every properly
critical question the conclusions of the most advanced
critical schools, and what will follow? Merely this, that
those who do so will have, in various respects, to alter their
views as to the manner and method in which the ideal of
the Messiah's Person, work, and kingdom was, point by
point, line by Hne, evolved and elaborated. There will not,
however, be a single Messianic word or sentence, not a
single line or feature the fewer in the Old Testament." 1
III. Human Conditioning of Peophecy — Canons of
Inteepretation
Prophecy, if it has its origin in God, has, nevertheless,
its human side. It comes to us through the mind, faculties,
speech, of particular individuals, living at a particular time,
and variously conditioned by a particular experience.
Keeping this human or psychological side of prophecy in
view, we can readily explain a difference which the atten
tive reader must observe between predictions of events
belonging to the prophet's immediate future, — not giving,
this phrase too restricted a sense, — and predictions that
stretch beyond this limit, and relate to events yet remote
¦St. Giles Lecture (Edinburgh) on " Christianity in Relation to otheu,
Religions." Cf. Dr.. Eat. Fairbaim* Prophecy h pp. 2gS)ff,,

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 461
and indefinable. Predictions of the former class might be,
and often were, quite definite and precise. Thus Isaiah
predicted the destruction of Sennacherib's army ; announced
to Hezekiah that God had added to his life fifteen years.1
Jeremiah predicted the capture of Jerusalem by the
Chaldeans, the fates of Jehoiakim and Zedekiah, the seventy
years' captivity.2 But it is different as the event recedes
into the future, loses its point of connection with the
historic present, above all, belongs to an order of things,
higher and more spiritual, for which the existing conditions
offer no sufficient analogy. Vision of the future is not
magicaUy effected ; the future is presented as an evolution
from the historically existing ; and, where that connection
fails, prediction must necessarily take on a more general
and ideal character. While, therefore, prediction of the
immediate future is relatively definite, the vision of events
more remote — especially of those belonging to the consum
mation of God's kingdom — becomes more general in form,
and greater freedom is allowed in shaping it in symbol and
metaphor. The idea becomes the main thing ; the particular
form of the idea — the clothing of imagery or detail it
receives— is less essential. There is even here, no doubt,
great difference of degree. Under the guidance of the
divine Spirit, prophecy is sometimes quite startling in the
individuality and definiteness of its prediction of even
remote events.8 The general principle, however, is un
deniably as we have stated it, and from it three things
follow which are of great importance as canons in the right
interpretation of prophecy of the future.
1. It follows from what has been said that£in the
prediction of distant events to which existing conditions no
longer apply, there is no alternative but that these should
be presented in the forms of the present. This is a principle
1 Isa. xxxviii. 5. „,,.,..
3 Jer. xxii. 18, 19 ; xxv. ; xxxvm. 14 ff. etc. Of. the instances in Acts
above cited. .
8 We cannot reckon it as accidental, e.g., that O.T. prophecy pointed
so definitely to Bethlehem as the place of the Messiah's birth (Mic. v. 2),
or to the peculiarity of His birth from a woman (Isa. vii. 14 ; Mic. v. 3).
Cf. Davidson, O.T. Prophecy, pp. 359, 362 ; Dr. Pat. Fairbairn, Prophecy,
pp 230-31. Dr. Davidson says : " When we consider that Christianity i3
the issue of the prior Old Testament period, it is not improbable, it is
rather to be expected, that hints should have been given even of its greatest
mysteries " (p. 359),

462 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
which runs through all prophecy where the future state of
the kingdom of God is concerned. It would have served
no end, and is, under ordinary conditions, psychologically
inconceivable, that the prophet should have been Hfted
out of all the forms of his existing consciousness, and
transported into conditions utterly strange and inappre
hensible by him. Such a revelation would, in any case,
have been incommunicable to others^? We have, in the
earthly condition, the same difficulty in picturing to our
selves the conditions of a heavenly state. But, just as
supersensible realities cannot be conceived or spoken of by
us except under forms of symbol or figure drawn from
earthly relations, so prophecy of the future, or of a better
dispensation, must necessarily picture that future, or those
new conditions, in forms drawn from the present.2 The
kingdom of God, e.g., in the Messianic age, is still figured
as a theocracy with Jerusalem as a centre ; the nations
come up to it to worship ; the enemies of the kingdom of
God are figured under the old names — Egypt, Babylon,
Edom, etc. ; the converted nations are these same powers.8!
How far the prophet himself was able to distinguish the
symbol from the idea is a secondary question. In some
cases, at least, the idea is clearly seen breaking through the
symbol, and transcending it.4
2. A second principle of interpretation relates to the
element of time in prophecy. Here the fact to be remem
bered is, that the one thing immovably certain to the
prophet — that with which he starts — is not the way by
which the goal of the kingdom of God is to be reached, but
©Cf. Paul's experience in 2 Cor. xii. 1-4. It is WTong to view the
prophetic consciousness as ordinarily a state of ecstasy.
2 Excellent remarks on this subjeot will be found in the work above
noted, Dr. Pat. Fairbairn's Prophecy, pp. 154 ff., 160 ff.
8 Dr. A. B. Davidson, therefore, puts the matter too sharply when he
says : " Such terms in the prophets are always to be taken in their literal,
natural sense " (p. 167). His own words furnish the necessary correction.
" No doubt, they occasionally broke through the atmosphere of their own
dispensation, and soared into regions higher and purer " (p. 167 ; cf. p. 391).
" When he says that Egypt shall be a desolation and the like, he means
that the enemies of God's kingdom shall certainly then, or ere then, be all
quite destroyed," etc. (pp. 180, 187).
4 E.g., such statements as Isa. ii. 2 : " The mountain of Jehovah's house
Bhall be established in the top of the mountains," etc., are plainly poetio
and figurative ; and the description of the flowing waters in Ezekiel's vision
pf the temple (chap, xlvii.) can hardly be intended to be taken literally.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 463
the goal itself. Whatever might betide in the interval,
there is no dubiety about that ; God's purpose shall be
fulfilled, His kingdom shall triumph, righteousness shaU be
supreme, and shaU fill the earth. Whatever opposes itself
to God's kingdom and resists it shall be shattered. How
ever proud and powerful wickedness may be, there is " a
day of Jehovah" coming — a judgment-day, when God's
righteousness shall be vindicated. On the other hand, the
steps by which this consummation is to be reached are only
gradually unfolded, as the course of providence prepares
the way for the discovery of them. Hence [arises the
feature so common in prophecy, that the consummation, or
some phase of it, is the immediate background of the series
of events in which the prophet is himself involved : of the
Assyrian invasion, of the return from exile, of the Macca
bsean deliverance, of the destruction of Jerusalem.1 That
is the one event which in prophetic perspective is always
near ; for which all events are preparing ; to which they are
hastening on. Hence the fact that in prophetic vision
extending into the distant future so little place is given the
element of time. There are exceptions to this rule — some
times time-measures, as Jeremiah's seventy years, or Daniel's
seventy weeks, are very definite. But ordinarily time is a
quite secondary element. Events are grasped in their ideal
relations, in their implication with one another as conducing
to the final result, and not in their empirical succession.
Prophecy is not, as Butler described it, history written before
hand, but the seizing of the inner meaning and the greater
stadia of things, and the presenting of future developments
in such graphic and pictorial forms as will best impress the
imagination and move the heart J
3. The third principle is that there is a conditional
element in prophecy. Expressed or implied, this element
is ever present, and ought not to be overlooked in the inter
pretation of prophecy. The most explicit utterance of this
principle is found in Jeremiah : "At what instant I (Jehovah)
shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom,
to pluck up and to break down and to destroy it ; if that
nation, concerning which I have spoken, turn from their
evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto
1 The same applies to, and in part explains, New Testament representa
tions of the Parousia (see below).

464 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
them. And at what instant I shaU speak concerning a
nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it ;
if it do evil in my sight that it obey not my voice, then I
will repent of the good wherewith I said that I would benefit.
them."1 This obviously has an important bearing on the
time and manner of fulfilment. Often, as in the case of
Jonah's preaching to Nineveh, the object of the prophecy
is to avert fulfilment. A striking instance is given in the
Book of Jeremiah itself of how fulfilment of Micah's
prophecy against Jerusalem was delayed because of
Hezekiah's repentance.2 Jesus, too, said of Jerusalem:
"How often would I have gathered thy children together
. . . and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto
you desolate."8 Human repentance may thus avert pre
dicted judgment ; human intercession may delay or modify
it ; human fidehty will hasten, as, on the other hand, human
unfaithfulness will retard, accomphshment of promise. The
glowing predictions of the prophets as to what God would
do for Israel — even those which were never HteraUy fulfiUed
— were not illusions. They held up truly what God was
wishful to do for Israel, and would have done, had the con-
¦ ditions, on their part, been present. It does not follow that
a day of fulfilment wQl not come, but when it arrives, it
will be under new conditions, and in a new form.4 In a
deeply important sense the same apphes to the New
Testament hope of the Lord's Coming. There is a human
conditioning even here. When the Church prays, "Thy
kingdom come," it imphcitly acknowledges that it has a
certain responsibility for the hastening or retarding of
that coming. Had the Church been more faithful — or
were it more faithful now — the consummation would be
1 Jer. xviii. 7-10. 3 Jer. xxvi. 17-19.
» Matt, xxiii. 37, 38.
* Delitzsch has some remarks on this point in connection with Ezekiel's
prophecies. "The condition," he says, " remained unfulfilled, and so with
it also the prophecy. For the grace of God does not work magically, and
prophecy is no fate. It is with the promises as it is with the aims of God's
grace : they are too often shattered on the resistance of man ; as, on the
other hand, also, His threatenings are taken back if the threatened antici
pate their fulfilment by repentance ; for the free will of the creature is no
mere show, and history no play of marionettes. The fulfilment of many
prophecies moves from the appointed time into the future, and remains in
reserve for that: the fulfilment of others is overtaken by the advancing
history of salvation, and for that reason becomes impossible, at least in the
externality of their content." — Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 280-81.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 465
hearer ; we might not still have been asking, " Where is the
promise of His Coming ? " 1

Part III
The Progressiveness of Revelation — Moral
Difficulties
It would be unfitting to close this discussion of the
problems of the Old Testament without a glance at .the
question of the progressiveness of revelation, in its bearings
on those " moral difficulties " which are a chief stumbling-
block to many in considering the claims of the revelation.
That revelation is progressive — has its less developed and
more developed stages — has been assumed throughout, and
is generaUy admitted. But the precise mode of appHcation
of this principle of progressiveness to the solution of the
ethical difficulties is not always clearly apprehended, and
needs careful statement.
I. Natuee and Origin of the Moral DrmcuLTTES
There would be no difficulty, possibly, in connection with
the progressiveness of revelation, if the progress in question
were simply one of development in moral knowledge— ot
growth from a more or less childlike consciousness of moral
truths to a, stage of greater maturity. The matter becomes
more complicated when we observe that it is also in part
the growth of a higher out of a lower morality, and that the
lower stages involve much which to the enlightened con
science at the higher stage is positively eviL It is here
that ethical difficulties emerge. When we go back to the
earher stages of Old Testament revelation — or even to the
Old Testament as a whole — we find, co-existing with the
knowledge and worship of the true God, with a high sense
of the general obligations of righteousness, and with what
we must recognise as great nobility of religious character,
many things which perplex and stagger us. We find
defects in the idea of duty, as measured by a later standard,
the non-recognition of principles of conduct which to us are
1 2 Pet. iii. 4.
3°

466 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
self-evident, institutions and usages which the enhghten?d
Christian conscience would not tolerate, things regarded as
permissible or right which we as emphatically pronounce
wrong. For instance, there is in the Old Testament slavery
and polygamy, there is blood-revenge, there is a low standard
— not in the law, indeed, but in individuals — of sexual
morality, there is the cursing of enemies, there is merciless-
ness in warfare,- in the case of the Canaanites there is the
extermination of whole populations. It is possible, no
doubt, to set all this in an exaggerated and distorted light,
and this, as we shall see, is sometimes done. The "moral
difficulties " are no new discovery. They were worked for
all they were worth a century and a half ago in the
Deistical controversy, and many sensible and temperate
rephes then appeared to the attacks on the Old Testament
based on them.1 Little can be said now which was not said,
with far keener edge, by a Chubb, a Morgan, or a Bohngbroke.
But when every allowance for exaggeration or animus is
made, we cannot but recognise that a very real problem
remains. The difficulty even here, it is next to be observed, is not
so much that such lower stages of morality should exist, and
should need to be overcome — that is only to be expected
— as that the defects in idea and practice cleave to the
organs of revelation themselves, — that these share in, and
give expression to, the same views as their contemporaries,
— that they do this sometimes when speaking in the name
of God, — nay, that God Himself is represented by them as
imphcated in, and as sanctioning, these lower forms of
morality. Thus Abraham receives from God a command to
sacrifice his son Isaac ; Deborah, a prophetess, pronounces
Jael blessed for her treacherous murder of Sisera ; the Mosaic
legislation provides for slavery, polygamy, and divorce ; the
command to exterminate the Canaanites is represented as
coming directly from God, and the Israelites are even re
proved for not executing it with sufficient thoroughness;2
David, or whoever was the writer, invokes curses on his
enemies, and prays for their destruction. It is, in these and
other cases, the apparent implication of God in the lower
1 Leland's View of the Deistical Writers, and Divine Authority of the Old
and New Testament (in reply to Morgan), may still be usefully consulted.
3 Judg. ii. 1-3.

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 467
morality, or seeming immorality, which causes the difficulty.
The morality of man may and must progress ; the morality
prescribed by God should, we naturally think, be one and
the same throughout. How, on the assumption of the reality
of the revelation, can we vindicate the divine action ? -
II. Eeroneous or Inadequate Solutions
In facing this problem, our first duty is to beware of
solutions which are not really, or only very partially, such.
It is, for example, no solution simply to use this word
"progressiveness" as if that of itself removed the difficulty.
It is true that revelation must be progressive ; but it may
be felt that what applies to the taught need not apply to
the teacher — that God should not be implicated in any
form of sanction of what is wrong.
Again, we do not solve the problem by denying that these
lower forms of morality were, for that age and stage of
development, really wrong, or did involve elements of evil.
Evolution may be invoked to show that there are numerous
intermediate grades between no morality and the highest
morality; that society must pass through such and such
stages of growth; that the moral ideal is only graduaUy
developed, and that, till it is developed, such practices as
slavery, polygamy, unchastity, mercilessness in war, etc.,
are not really sinful ; that there can be no wrong, therefore,
in recognising and sanctioning them. This, like the whole
evolutionary conception of a necessary development of
humanity through evil, is a dangerous line of defence ; is,
moreover, repugnant to the genuine Christian point of view.
Jesus did not, e.g., regard the Mosaic law of divorce as
per se right even for the Jews. It was given them, He said,
for the hardness of then.' hearts, and He referred them back
to the purer primitive idea of marriage.1 Slavery, from the
Christian standpoint, is a contradiction of the true idea of
man, as God made him, and meant him to exist ;2 is, there
fore, something inherently wrong, under whatever cir
cumstances, or at whatever stage in the history of mankind,
it occurs. 1 Matt. xix. 3-9.
5 Gen. i. 26, 27 ; and see the ground of the prohibition of shedding man's
blood, Gen. ix. 6.

468 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
Shall we betake ourselves, then, to what may be called
the critical solution — viz., the denying outright that God
had any implication in the matter, and the ascribing of
those laws and statements in the Bible which impute such
participation in evil to God to the mistaken notions of the
Biblical writers themselves ? Either the narratives are held
to be legends, or they are supposed to reflect only the ideas of
the writers ; in any case, the attribution of the laws and com
mands which create offence to Jehovah as their Author has
no foundation in reality. What the leaders of Israel — a
Moses, a Joshua, a Samuel — or the writers of their histories,
ascribed to God of a nature which we think wrong, came
reaUy from their own imperfect thoughts and feelings, and
God had nothing to do with it. Thus God is thought to be
exonerated from participation in everything that offends
the moral sense. Such a view may plausibly be held to be
a necessary coroUary from the admission of growth in
rehgion and moral ideas. For how, it may be asked, can a
writer avoid colouring his narrative in accordance with
the idea of God he himself possesses, representing Jehovah as
sanctioning or approving of those things which he thinks He
must approve of, and as condemning those things which he
— the author — reprobates? The writer's own standard of
religion and morahty would seem to be the inevitable
measure of the representations in his history.
This method of treatment no doubt frees God from
responsibility for anything in the record which appears
objectionable, — Origen of old attained the same end by
" aUegorising " all such passages, — but the solution has the
disadvantage that it is a cutting of the knot, not a loosing
of it, for it denies the chief factor in the problem — the
reality of the revelation. Neither do we, even in this way,
really get rid of the difficulty. We may relieve the earlier
history of laws and commands of God which offend us;
but it is only to roll the burden upon the shoulders of
prophets in an age when the higher morahty is presumed to
be developed. The strongest injunctions, e.g., to destroy
the Canaanites are found in the Book of Deuteronomy — on
the theory of the critics, a prophetic work of the seventh
century B.C., and the most drastic accounts of the carrying
out of these injunctions are those put to the account of the
Deuteronomic revision of the Book of Joshua, the date of

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 469
which is still later. It is not the early Hebrews only, there
fore, who hold these imperfect views of God ; but the prophets
themselves, who' are assumed to represent the more advanced
stage of religion and morality, and to be the peculiar
exponents of the higher Old Testament revelation, share in
them, and put their imprimatur upon them. God's Spirit
in the prophets, if not in the history, still seems implicated
in what is wrong.
Difficulties exist ; but it is a pity tg add to them, as is
occasionally done, by unnecessarily lowering the character,
and limiting the scope, of early Old Testament morality,
even if it be with the aim of magnifying the divine
leading in Israel in the evolving of higher conceptions.
Here again comes in the tendency to exaggeration, as when
it is affirmed that early Israel had no sense of personal right
or responsibiHty, no feeling of humanity or mercy for those
outside its own circle, no compunctions about falsehood and
fraud, etc. It could easily be shown that, despite all marks
of a lower stage, the moral standard among the Hebrews
maintained its unique, and, in ancient times, unapproached,
distinction.1 It is unfair, e.g., to say with a recent writer,
that " the Hebrews were bound by moral obligation and the
sanction of religion in their dealings with one another, but
were entirely free of these in their dealings with foreigners,"
and that " in the latter case they were governed purely by
considerations of expediency." 2 This is not borne out by
the instances quoted, and is disproved by the recognition of
common principles of justice and morality by which all
men are judged. Where universal principles of moral
conduct are recognised, there arises of necessity the sense
of mutual obligation ; and such are found, not only in Israel,
but in all ancient nations.8 It is the postulate of the whole
Biblical view of history that the world is under moral govern
ment, and that individuals, communities, and nations,
everywhere, are judged and punished for wickedness. What
else is the moral of the narratives of the flood, of the
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the judgment on the
Canaanites ? It was for their vices that the Canaanites were
1 See below, pp. 470, 475.
• Professor G. B. Gray, The Divine Discipline of Israel, p. 48.
• The ethical codes of Egypt and Babylonia show that common principles
of right were always recognised ; that, in fact, the world has always had a
great deal more moral light than it well knew how to make use of.

470 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
destroyed.1' The history is full of instances which show the
recognition of principles of general obligation. Is it
credible, e.g., in view of his own words (Gen. xxxix. 9),
that Joseph in Egypt was guided in his conduct in his
master's house, or towards his master's wife, by no higher
principle than "expediency"? It was on grounds of common
right that the people of Israel protested against their harsh
treatment by Pharaoh.2 Even Jephthah invokes Jehovah,
as the Judge, to judge between Israel and Ammon.8 It is
quite true that the Old Testament had not attained to Christ's
wide sense of the word " neighbour," and that the command
to love all, even enemies,4 would have sounded strangely in
the ears of the ancient Israelite. But short of love there is
justice, and there is no reason for believing that duties falling
under that head were not recognised as applicable to Gentiles
as weU as to Jews.6 Too much, we would add, ought not
to be made of the imperfect conduct, or moral lapses, of
individuals, or even of the prevailing practice of a time, as
indicative of the religious and moral standard ; else it would
go hard with ourselves under a higher and purer dispensa
tion.8 The conduct of Judah 7 and Samson,8 e.g., cannot be
held to determine the estimate of sexual relations in Israel.
In letter, and even more in spirit, the Mosaic law stands for
a high ideal of sexual morality.9 Of this we have the
1 Gen. xv. 16 ; Lev. xviii. 24 ff. ; Deut. xii. 29 ff. Cf. Bruce, Chief End
of Revelation, pp. 139-40.
2 Ex. v. 15 ff. Judg. xi. 27.
4 Matt. v. 43-45 ; Lukex. 29-37.
6 If "the Jews (unwarrantably) interpreted the precept "Thou shalt
love thy neighbour " as entitling him to "hate his enemy," and if deceit and
stratagem were regarded as lawful towards enemies in war (are they not
held to be so still ?), it does not follow that foreigners, simply as such, were
viewed as outside the pale of moral obligations. The Old Testament nowhere
inculcates, like Plato, " a pure and heart-felt hatred of the foreign nature "
(in his Menexenus), or makes it, as Seeley says of ancient nations, "almost
as much a duty to hate foreigners as to love fellow-citizens " (Ecce Homo,
chap. xiv.). Israel has, indeed, from the first, an aspect of blessing to
mankind. 6 Are there no moral scandals, profanity, fraud, cursing of enemies,
prayers for their destruction, eto., among ourselves 1
' Gen. xxxviii. 8 Judg. xvi.
9 The Mosaic law, which, it is to be remembered, is a code of juris
prudence, not of private ethics, surrounds female virtue with safeguards,
and is stern in the punishment of violations of it (e.g., Ex. xxi. 7 ff. ; xxii.
16, 17 ; Deut. xxii. 13-30) ; is delicate in its provision for the treatment of
even captive women (Deut. xxi. 10-14) ; brands, as an abomination, the
prostitution of women at the sanctuary (Deut. xxiii. 17) — therefore, in

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 471
purest expression in the teachings of the prophets,1 who
here, as elsewhere, do not claim to be introducing any
thing new.
III. General Laws of Progressive Revelation
We shall perhaps get nearer the truth in this matter,
and conserve what is of value in the above explanations, if,
beginning at the other end, we assume the reality of revela
tion, and ask how, and under what limitations, revelation
could enter into such a history as man's. We shaU not
assume that the development is normal ; on the contrary,
we shall aUow it to be in many ways evil ; we shall take for
granted that slavery, polygamy, cruelty, etc., are wrong, and
that this must have been God's judgment on them then as
it is now. How then explain the apparent tolerance and
sanction of such evils ?
The fuU treatment of this subject would involve the
careful consideration of God's general relation to the evil of the
world. The truth is here again illustrated that there is no
difficulty in theology which does not emerge equally in
philosophy; or, as Butler pointed out, that there is no
difficulty in revelation which has not its counterpart in
God's ordinary providence. From the abstract or doctrinaire
point of view, it may seem a strange thing that God should
uphold, or have anything to do with, a world that has evil
in it at aU; should permit, and be patient of, that evil;
should allow it to develop, and overrule it for His own
purposes; should seem, by His silence and seeming in
difference, to connive at the crimes and iniquities of which
so large a part of the history of mankind is made up. The
sword of the Israehte is, after all, only a more acute form of
the problem that meets us in the providential employment,
in even more horrible forms,2 of the sword of the Assyrian,
principle, all such conduct. "To play the harlot" is an expression of
shame everywhere in Scripture. Cf. Gen. xxxiv. 7, 31 ; xxxviii. 24 ; Deut.
xxii. 21, etc.
1 Hosea iv. may serve as example ; cf. specially vers. 2, 10-14. The
sin is literal as well as spiritual.
2 One has only to look at the accounts and pictures on the Assyrian
monuments of the barbarities and tortures inflicted by conquerors on their
prisoners — the beheadings, impalings, flayings, Windings, mutilations, etc.
— to see how terrible a thing war ordinarily was in these times. Such
extremes of cruelty are not a feature of Jewish warfare. The cases in

472 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
the Chaldean, or Roman, to inflict the judgment threatened
of God on Israel itself.1 Yet only a Httle reflection is needed
to show that, if the world is to be upheld, governed, and
judged, at all, it is only in some such way that even the
Holiest can govern and judge it. As Paul says, in repelling
the objection that God is unrighteous in taking vengeance
for sins which He has overruled for His own glory : " God
forbid ; for then how shall God judge the world ? " 2 Let us
see how this bears on the progressiveness of revelation.8
1. One thing plain is, that, at whatever point revelation
begins, it must take man up at the stage at which it finds him.
It must take him up at his existing stage of knowledge and
culture, and with his existing social usages and ethical ideas.
Just as it was remarked above of the prophet, that it is
psychologicaUy inconceivable that he should be Hfted out of
aU the forms of his existing consciousness, and transported
into conditions for which no analogy was found in the
contents of that consciousness; so it must be said of
historical revelation, that it could not at a stroke annihilate
existing conditions, and create a world of new ones. Re
velation must begin somewhere, and must work patiently in
accordance with the laws of historical development ; 4 must
lay hold on what is better to counterwork and gradually
overcome what is worse; must be content to implant
principles, and bear patiently with much remaining evil, till
the good has time to grow, and to give rise to a new order
of things that will supplant the old. This is the true side
of the law of evolution, and it applies in grace, as well as
in nature. We see this law in operation even under
Christianity. There is not a word in Christ's teaching, e.g.,
any more than there is in Paul's, directly denouncing
slavery, or instigating to a revolt against it. Yet nothing
which torture was inflicted (as in David's treatment of the Moabites, 2 Sam.
xii. 31) are happily rare.
1 This is the line of argument chiefly used in a once popular book,
Henry Rogers' Eclipse of Faith.
3 Rom. iii. 6.
8 We proceed on the same lines essentially as Mozley, Hessey, Bruce, eto.
See references below.
4 This does not mean that in revelation the lowest type comes first. On
the contrary, in each new dispensation a start is made, and the foundation of
the new era laid, with a typical personality (Abraham, Mo3es, both still
relative to their age) ; in the case of Christianity with an absolute type of
God-manhood. Cf. Martensen, Dogmatics, pp. 249 ff. ; Dorner, Person of
Christ, v. pp. 195, 198. • .

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 473
is plainer than that slavery is opposed to the fundamental
ideas and principles of Christ's religion, and that in pro
portion as these prevail it is bound to be abolished. We
speak of the imperfections of the Old Testament ; but we
should remember how far, as already hinted, society is even
yet from being able to conduct its business on the ideal
principles of Christ's religion.1 We have, e.g., to tolerate
and regulate houses for the sale of intoxicants ; we use
oaths, which Christ says " come of evil " ; 2 we sanction, and
occasionaUy even glorify, war, which is as frightful a con
tradiction of Christ's principles as it is possible to conceive.
We do not dispute that war — defensive war — is sometimes
a necessity ; but this only illustrates what we mean, that
there is a distinction between principles and the possibility
of giving them complete effect at once. Christ condemns
war in no other way than He condemns slavery, i.e., the
fundamental principles of His rehgion contradict it ; but it
needs time to educate the pubhc conscience to the point of
abhorring it as it should, and finally of replacing it by more
rational methods of settling international disputes.
2. Given this as a first principle, that revelation, where-
ever it begins, must take up man as it finds him, a second
wiU easily be deduced, viz., that revelation can be held
responsible only for the new element which it introduces —
not for the basis on which it works, or for everything in the
state of mind, or Hmited outlook, of the recipient, with
which it happens to be associated. Revelation does one
thing at once — implants a truth, constitutes a relation,
estabhshes a principle, which may have a whole rich con
tent impHcit in it, but it cannot convey to the recipient
from the first a fuU, aU-round apprehension of everything
which that principle involves. On the contrary, such
appHcations must necessarily have adaptation to the stage
of morahty or of social institutions then existing, and it is
only gradually that the principle can be clearly disengaged
from its temporary form. In the reception of revelation,
therefore, two elements have constantly to be distinguished
— the one, the form of consciousness, or state of view and
moral feeling, into which the revelation is introduced ; this
1 The unfortunate thing about society is that it does not always try to
realise Christ's ideals.
2 Or " of the evil one," Matt. v. 37.

474 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
may be relatively low and undeveloped ; the other, the new
element of revelation itself, which is the positive and
germinal factor, and represents the real stage in the
advance. There need be no dubiety, or lack of clearness or
positiveness, in this new element ; it is a pure, original point
of knowledge or insight, but its authority extends only to
itself, and cannot be employed to sanction every other
element associated with it in the same consciousness. For
example, the days of the Judges are acknowledged to have
been in many ways rude and barbarous ; we have seen that
the Bible itself declares this. It is no argument, therefore,
against the reality of revelation in that age that the Spirit
of God came on men — as on Jephthah — whose modes of
speech and action (as in his ideas of God, or his vow about
his daughter)1 show many traces of the rudeness of the
times. So again, Deborah was a real prophetess, i.e., she
possessed from God's Spirit the qualification necessary for
judging and rallying by her word the tribes of Israel.2 But
her song of victory, with its panegyric of Jael, shows that,
with all her inspired exaltation, she yet stood on the ground
of her age in her judgment of deeds which a purer stage of
enlightenment would condemn.8 The same principle applies
to certain of the imprecations, and the frequent prayers for
the destruction of enemies, in the psalms — on which more
is said below. It is the course of revelation which alone
can correct these defects of its earher stages, and, by re
velation growing out of revelation, enable the world and the
Church to transcend the lower stages altogether.
3. A third principle follows. As, in virtue of the fore
going, revelation can be held responsible only for the new
element it introduces, and not for the basis on which it works,
or for everything in the state of mind of its recipients,
so, conversely, it is the function of revelation to lay hold on
whatever better elements there may be in that state of mind, in
order, by their means, to overcome the imperfections, and
create something higher. This is the educational function
in revelation, which can only reach its end by working with
such means as the imperfect state affords towards the pro
duction of a more perfect. An illustration of the principle
1 See above, pp. 131, 140. 2 Judg. iv. 4-6.
8 Perhaps a complete view of the circumstances would mitigate even our
judgment of Jael's action (cf. Mozley, Ruling Ideas, pp. 142 ff.).

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 475
in question is found in the command to Abraham to sacrifice
Isaac. In so far as this command supposes as its background
the heathen custom of the sacrifice of children, it falls under
the two former principles that revelation takes up a man at
the stage at which it finds him, and is not responsible for
the basis on which it works ; but in so far as it uses this basis
to elicit a singular proof of Abraham's faith, and actually
to put the stamp of divine condemnation on human sacrifice
in Israel, it falls under the third, or educative, principle.
For even in this most hateful form of heathen sacrifice, as
has often been pointed out, there was a nobler element
present. This nobler element was the idea of the surrender
of the dearest and best to God, and it was God's will to
elicit and conserve this spiritual fruit, while rejecting as
abhorrent the form in which it was embodied.1 So the
usage of blood-revenge is one of the rudest methods of justice
in a tribal state of society ; yet, by hmiting and regulating
this usage by the law of the cities of refuge, its worst effects
were checked, and the way was prepared for its ultimately
dying out altogether. The legislation on marriage and
divorce put salutary restrictions on polygamy, and the wanton
putting away of a wife, and, after the exile especially, mono
gamy, though not universal, seems to have become the rule.2
The same principle applies in some degree even to what
jars upon us most — the apparent sanction given to the spirit
of revenge, or, as it may be better put, the restricted range
of the spirit of mercy. There is here, as elsewh&re on this
subject, great need for careful and balanced statement. It
is perfectly certain that the Mosaic religion, taken as a
whole, inculcated mercy with a decision and earnestness
that no other rehgion before Christianity ever showed ; 8 it
is equaUy certain that hatred and revengefulness, as private
1 On the sacrifice of Isaac, see Stanley, Jewish Church, i. pp. 40 ff. ;
Mozley, Ruling Ideas, Lect. II. ; Bruce, Chief End of Revelation, pp. 93 ff. ;
Ottley, Aspects of O.T. , pp. 177-78; Driver, Genesis, pp. 221-22, etc.
2Cf. Smith's Diet, of Bible, art. "Marriage," vol. ii. p. 246. The
contrast is apparent in Mohammedanism, in which polygamy continues to
flourish. 8 It is not too much to say that the spirit of tenderness and mercy pervades
the laws of Israel (not to speak of the writings of the prophets) in a way to
which no other ancient code affords any parallel. The poor, the widow,
the fatherless, the stranger, the homeless, the distressed, are Jehovah's
special care, and His law is full of provisions for them. Cf., e.g., Ex. xxii.
21-27 ; xxiii. 9-12 ; Deut. ?v, 7 ff. ; xxiv. 14-22, etc.

476 PSALMS AND PROPHETS:
passions, are constantly condemned.1 But where enmity to
God, or antagonism to His cause, was concerned, the stage at
which we find ourselves in the Old Testament is one of un
compromising hostility.2 It is the principle of justice, in all
its stern severity, not yet that of mercy, that rules ; s and little
distinction is made between the transgressor and his sin.
The judgment falls unsparingly on the wrong-doer, and, in
the tribal stage of society, on all that are his.4 This
principle is applied, in the case of presumptuous or public
transgression, as relentlessly within Israel, and upon Israel,5
as it is without Israel. The destruction of the Canaanites is
the most extensive, as it is the most awful, apphcation of it,
but it is no more than an application.8 And even this stage,
with its inevitable defects, was one that had to be gone
through — as no one has shown more strikingly than Professor
Seeley, in his Ecce Homo,1 — if the higher result was to be
attained. In general, then, we perceive that revelation, without
parting with anything of its reality or authority, is, in the
truest sense, an organic process — a growing from less to
more, with adaptation at every point to the stage of develop
ment of its recipients — a Hght shining often in a dark place,
but still shining more and more unto the perfect day. Its
higher stages criticise, if we may so spea*k, its lower ; shed
off temporary elements; disengage principles from the
imperfect forms in which they are embodied, and give them
more perfect expression ; yet unfailingly conserve, and take
up into the new form, every element of permanent value in
1 See the remarkable precepts bearing on the treatment of an enemy, Ex.
xxiii. 4, 5 (cf. Deut. xxii. 1, 4). Cf. also Ps. vii. 4, with David's treatment
of Saul (above, p. 443).
2 Ps. cxxxix. 21, 22 well expresses the spirit: "Do not I hate them,
0 Jehovah, that hate Thee ? . . . I hate them with perfect hatred ; I count
them mine enemies." It is in this sense we are to understand most or all
of the imprecatory psalms.
8 Of., e.g., Deut. xiii.; xvii. 2-7.
4 Kg., Achan (Josh. vii. 10 ff.) ; Korah (Num. xvi. 24 ff.). Cf. Mozley,
pp. 115 ff.
' It is not to be forgotten, on the other side, that this sternness applied
only to presumptuous transgressions (cf. Num. xv. 30-31), special theocratio
sins, and offences against the criminal law, and that the religion is through
out pervaded with divine mercy and forgiveness (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7).
" Cf. the authors named above : Stanley, i. pp. 217-22 ; Mozley, Lect.
IV. ; Bruce, pp. 137-44 ; and see Note D on Destruction of the Canaanites.
'Of. his chapters xix. ("The Law of Mercy") and xxi. ("The Law of
Resentment " ).

THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION 477
the old. Prophecy does not let fall one element that was of
permanent value in the law ; Christianity conserves every jot
and tittle of the spiritual content of both law and prophets.1
The Close
Progressive revelation culminates in Christ. Here, as
we began, so we end. In Christ the long development of
Old Testament rehgion — Abrahamic promise, Mosaic co
venant, Levitical sacrifice, Davidic kingship, prophetic hopes,
Messianic ideals, strain of psalmist, redemptive purpose —
finds its fulfilment and point of repose. His Person clasps
Old and New Testaments into one. To understand the Old
Testament aright we must look to this goal to which all its
roads lead. Bespice flnem. On the other hand, if faith has
firm grasp of Christ as risen and exalted, this wiU put all
the Old Testament in a new light for us. It is this connec
tion of Old Testament with New, of law with Gospel, of
prophecy with Christ, which gives the critical problems we
have been studying their keenest interest. The tendency
of late has been to make too light of this connection.
The storm of criticism which, in the last decades, assailed
the Old Testament, was fondly thought by many to leave
intact the New Testament. What mattered it about
Abraham and Moses, so long as Jesus and His Gospel
remained? That delusion is passing away. The fact is
becoming apparent to the dullest which has long been
evident to unbiassed observers, that much of the radical
criticism of the Old Testament proceeded on principles, and
was conducted by methods, which had only to be applied
with like thoroughness to the New Testament to work like
havoc. The fundamental ideas of God and His revelation
which underlay that criticism could not, as we set out by
affirming, lead up to a doctrine of the Incarnation, but only to
a negation of it. The conceptions of Christ and Christianity
which have been its tacit presuppositions from the days of
Eichhorn, De Wette, and Vatke, to those of Kuenen and
WeUhausen, are toto coslo different from those of the beheving
Church, and could not in time but work themselves out
to their logical conclusions. This, accordingly, is what we
see actually happening. The principles of a rationalistic
1Matt. v. 17,18..

478 THE PROGRESSIVENESS OF REVELATION
criticism, having once gained recognition and approval in the
region of the Old Testament, are now being transferred and
applied with increasing boldness and vigour to the New,
with the result that it is rapidly coming to be assumed that
only a Christ from whom all supernatural traits are stripped
off can be accepted as historical by the " modern " mind. Not
only do critics like Wellhausen and Gunkel, who, advancing
from the Old Testament, have entered the New Testament
field,1 take this ground, but a multitude of works on New
Testament subjects, recently issued and enjoying a consider
able popularity in their own tongues and in translations,2
have the same as their underlying postulate. A grave peril,
growing out of a long train of conditions in the spirit of the
age, has thus arisen, which cannot be too early or too reso
lutely faced. This at least is the conviction under which
the present book has been written. If it leads any who
have perhaps yielded too ready or indiscriminating an assent
to the positions of the modern critical movement to examine
more carefully the foundations of the theory of the Old
Testament to which they have given their adherence, its
end will be fulfilled.
1 Wellhausen translates and critically comments on Matthew and Mark.
He simply leaves out the first and second chapters of Matthew, and begins
with the third chapter, without a word of explanation. Gunkel entitles his
production, Zum Religionsgeschichtlichen Verstandniss des Neuen Testaments.
He seeks to show that the evangelical narratives of the virgin-birth and
infancy of Jesus, of His temptation, transfiguration, resurrection, etc. , borrow
from foreign religions (through Judaism).
3 We have in view writers like ReVille, Wernle, Wrede, Oscar Holtzmann,
Percy Gardner, and many more. See in Chapter I. p. 7.

NOTES TO CHAPTERS

4T9

NOTE TO CHAPTER I

NOTE A.— P. 3
THE JEWISH CANON
Dr. Driver begins his notice of the Canon (Introd. p. ii) with
the son of Sirach ; we would prefer to begin lower down, with
the New Testament and Josephus. The New Testament speaks
of a well-known collection of "Scriptures," believed to be
divinely inspired, and follows the usual division into "the
law of Moses, and the prophets, and (from its chief part) the
psalms" (Luke xxiv. 44). The passage in Josephus, which in
bis first edition Dr. Driver does not mention, is as follows :
" For we have not myriads of discordant and conflicting books,
but twenty-two only, comprising the record of all time, and justly
accredited as divine. Of these, five are books of Moses, which
embrace the laws and tbe traditions of the origin of mankind,
until his own death, a period of almost 3000 years. From the
death of Moses till the reign of Artaxerxes (465-425 b.c), the
prophets who followed Moses narrated the events of their time in
thirteen books. The remaining four books consist of hymns to God,
and maxims of conduct for men. From Artaxerxes to our own
age, the history has been written in detail, but it is not esteemed
worthy of the same credit, on account of the exact succession of
the prophets having been no longer maintained" (Contra Apion,
L 8 ; Driver, p. ix ; see Note H, p. 527 below).
This is an important testimony to the belief of tbe Jews in
the first century a.d. as to the number of the sacred books, their
divine inspiration, and tbe time, approximately, when the Canon
was completed. The four books which in Josephus's arrange
ment constitute the third division are the Psalms, Proverbs,
Ecclesiastes, and Canticles. Daniel, in this distribution, falls
among the thirteen prophets. The division into twenty-two books
(with slight variation of enumeration) is one followed in the Church
31

482 NOTE TO CHAPTER I
by Origen and Melito of Sardis (both of whom received it
from Jews), and by Jerome, who, however, knew of and mentions
the Rabbinical division into twenty-four books. The Jewish
Palestinian division is into the three parts — five books of the
Law ; eight of the Prophets, subdivided into " former prophets "
(Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings), and " latter prophets " (Isaiah, -
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and tbe Twelve Minor Prophets as one book) ;
and eleven Hagiographa (Chronicles, Psalms, etc.) — twenty-four in
all. Daniel in this case (as Jerome also testifies,) was included
among the Hagiographa. The twenty-two of Josephus is
harmonised with the twenty-four of the other reckoning by taking
Ruth with Samuel, and Lamentations with Jeremiah. Melito
reckons Ruth, but omits Esther.
It is clear that Josephus regards the Canon as closing about
tbe reign of Artaxerxes, after which, he says, there was not an
exact succession of prophets (tbe same idea of the cessation of
prophecy is expressed in 1 Mace. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41, and
elsewhere), and he represents this as tbe traditional belief of his
time. The same tradition in a more confused form is met with
in tbe spurious letter prefixed to 2 Mace: "The same things
were also reported in tbe public archives and in the records
relating to Nehemiah ; and how, founding a library, he gathered
together the things concerning the kings and prophets, and the
(writings) of David, and letters of kings about sacred gifts."
When we proceed to test this tradition, we do not find it wholly
unworthy of credence.
The law was plainly of canonical authority in the days of
Ezra (see pp. 295 ff.) ; how far it is older is discussed in Chap. IX.
There is nothing against the collection of prophets in tbe time
of Nehemiah ; though earlier collections may well have existed,
analogous to tbe collections of Paul's Epistles in tbe early
Church. Tbe third part of tbe Canon was more elastic ; whether
it remained open to receive contributions of a later date than,
say, the fourth century, depends on tbe view we take of Macca-
baaan psalms and of the age of Daniel (see Chap. XIL). But the
repeated assertion that tbe spirit of prophecy bad departed is
a strong proof that books believed to be new were not admitted.
The treatment of the work of the son of Sirach (see p. 449) is
evidence of this. This author is acquainted with, a threefold
division of the sacred books, but puts his own work on a quite
different level from them ; and his book, though highly esteemed,
was not received into tbe Canon. The impression given is, that
the collection of law, prophets, and other sacred books was already
old — a fact borne- out by the LXX translation (see p. 449).
It is not an argument against this that Esther and Ecclesiastes

NOTE TO CHAPTER I 483
were subjects of discussion in the schools, any more than the
existence of " disputed books " in the time of Eusebius (fourth
century a.d.) disproves that tbe Canon of tbe New Testament
was already practically fixed in the second century.
On the facts, see, along with Driver, tbe works of Buhl and
Ryle on tbe O.T. Canon, and tbe article " O.T. Canon " in Diet.
0/ Bible, by Woods (vol. iii).

NOTES TO CHAPTER II

NOTE A.— P. 31
THE BIBLE AND OTHER SACRED BOOKS
A pew words of personal testimony may be quoted from Professor
Monier Williams on tbe comparison of the Scriptures with tbe
Sacred Books of tbe East : —
"When I began investigating Hinduism and Buddhism, I
found many beautiful gems ; nay, I met with bright coruscations
of true light flashing here and there amid the surrounding
darkness. As I prosecuted my researches into these non-
Christian systems, I began to foster a fancy that they had
been unjustly treated. I began to observe and trace out curious
coincidences and comparisons with our own sacred book of the
East. I began, in short, to be a believer in what is called the
evolution and growth of religious thought. ' These imperfect
systems,' I said to myself, ' are interesting efforts of the human
mind struggling upwards towards Christianity. Nay, it is
probable, that tbey were all intended to lead up to the one true
religion, and that Christianity is, after all, merely tbe climax,
the complement, tbe fulfilment of them all.'
" Now there is a delightful fascination about such a theory,
and, what is more, there are really elements of truth in it.
But I am glad of this opportunity of stating publicly that I am
persuaded I was misled by its attractiveness, and that its
main idea is quite erroneous. . . . We welcome these books.
We ask every missionary to study their contents, and thank
fully lay hold of whatsoever things are true and of good
report in them. But we warn bim that there can be no greater
mistake than to force these non-Christian Bibles into conformity
with some scientific theory of development, and then point to
the Christian's holy Bible as the crowning product of religious
evolution. So far from this, these non-Christian Bibles are all
484

NOTES TO CHAPTER II 485
developments in tbe wrong direction. They all begin with some
flashes of true hght, and end in utter darkness. Pile them, if
you will, on the left side of your study table, but place your
own holy Bible on the right side — all by itself, all alone — and
with a wide gap between." — Quoted by Joseph Cook in God
in the Bible (Boston Lectures), p. 16.
Cf. Carlyle's judgment on the Koran in bis Heroes, Lect. II.
" The Hero as Prophet " ; Max Miiller on tbe Hindu Brahmanas,
in Sanscrit Literal, pp. 389 ff.

NOTE B.— P. 45
MYTHOLOGY AND HISTORY IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Revelation is historical, and it is a serious disservice to religion
to depreciate tbe historical element in revelation, or to represent
it as immaterial to faith whether the history in the Old Testa
ment is true or legendary. Budde himself says : " Ood reveals
Himself not through words, but through deeds, not in speech, but
in action " (Das Alte Test, und die Ausgrabungen, 2nd ed., Pref.
p. 9). But if the ground is taken from the only facts we have,
what remains to yield the revelation ? Is it not left in tbe air ?
Tbe peculiar combination witnessed in tbe Anglican Church
of acceptance of the results of the Wellhausen criticism with
zeal for every jot and tittle of a high patristic orthodoxy — of a
method which turns tbe bulk of tbe Old Testament history into
legend and invention, with stout defence of the historicity of
the Gospel narratives of tbe Virgin Birth, the Transfiguration,
and the Resurrection — is one, we are convinced, foredoomed to
failure. One side or the otber must give way. God, Ottley
says truly, "interposes" in miracle (Aspects of O.T., p. 115; cf.
pp. 61 ff., 107 ff). But if the actual miracles are taken away by
the narratives being regarded as late and legendary, what better
are we ? Ottley refers, p. 108, to the " admirable remarks " on O.T.
miracle of Schultz, who had no place in bis scheme for miracle
in the proper sense at all.
It is again a mistake to represent it as a matter of indifference
for tbe right understanding of revelation what theory we adopt
of its origins and course of development. What does it matter
bow tbe thing came to be, it is said, if we have the result?
But in everything else it is recognised that a thing is only known
when its real history is known. No scientist would ever allow
that one account of origins is as good as another. It is a first

486 NOTES TO CHAPTER II
principle of science that we can only understand a phenomenon
rightly when we accurately understand its antecedents and
genesis. It is this which gives its importance to the idea of
evolution. Why, among Biblical critics themselves, tbe stress
laid on getting behind tbe so-called " legends " to the real course
of the development, if not because it is felt that it is only when
legend is displaced by fact that we have tbe true key to the
nature of the religion t But if the critic's understanding of the
history turns out to be a misunderstanding, that equally will be
a fatal obstacle to a right comprehension of the result.
Even legend, however, is not mythology, and, despite recent
attempts to revive a mythological interpretation of personages
and incidents in the Old Testament (see below, p. 488), there is
very general agreement that tbe Old Testament religion is non-
mythological. This absence of mythology is another marked
feature of contrast witb other religions. We may, if we please,
speak of a tradition like that of Eden as " mythical," as others
may discuss whether it contains symbol or allegory. But "mytb "
in this case must be distinguished from mythology proper, i.e.,
such weaving of stories about the gods in their relations to
each other and to tbe world as are found in other religions, and
have generally their origin in nature-phenomena (e.g., sun-myths,
dawn-myths, myths of growth and reproduction, etc.). From this
element, as most scholars recognise, the Biblical religion seems
entirely free. See the remarks of Professor Robertson, Early
Religion of Israel, pp. 188-9, 299. Professor Robertson quotes
from an interesting article by Mr. Andrew Lang in The New
Review, Aug. 1889; and also quotes Stade, Geschichte, L pp.
438-9. Gunkel may also be referred to, Genesis, pp. 113 ff. He
thinks traces of an original mythological basis are to be discovered,
but contends for tbe absence of mythology in tbe proper religion
of Israel. (On bis theory, see below, p. 494.)

NOTE C— P. 50
INSPIRATION AND THE MATERIALS OF THE RECORD
Inspiration does not create the materials of its record, but works
with those it bas received. It reveals itself in the insight it
shows into them, and in the use it makes of them. An interest
ing illustration of this truth is furnished in a note of the old
commentator, Matthew Henry, on 1 Cbron. viii. 1-32. " As to
tbe difficulties," he says, " that occur in this and the foregoing

NOTES TO CHAPTER II 48;
genealogies we need not perplex ourselves. I presume Ezra took
them as he found them in the boohs of the kings of Israel and
Judah (chap. ix. 1), according as they were given in by the
several tribes, each observing what method they thought fit.
Hence some ascend, others descend ; some have numbers affixed1,
others places; some have historical remarks intermixed, others
have not ; some are snorter, others longer ; some agree with
other records, others differ; some, it is likely, were torn, erased,
and blotted, others more legible. Those of Dan and Reuben
were entirely lost. This holy man wrote as he was moved of
the Holy Ghost ; but there was no necessity for the making up
of tbe defects, no, nor for the rectifying of the mistakes of these
genealogies by inspiration. It was sufficient that he copied them
out as they came to hand, or so much of them as was requisite
to the present purpose, which was the directing of tbe returned
captives to settle as nearly as they could with those of their own
family, and in tbe places of their former residence."

NOTE TO CHAPTER III

NOTE A.— P. 59
CRITICAL EXTRAVAGANCES
In the Nineteenth Century for December 1902, Canon Cheyne
commends to English readers the speculations of the latest school
of Biblical critics, according to which the Jewish literature is
largely a borrowed mythology. According to Dr. H. Winckler,
who represents this school, not only are Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob legendary heroes, whose histories are derived from astronom
ical myths, but something similar must be said of Saul, David,
and Solomon. David, he holds, is a solar hero; his red hair is
the image of tbe rays of the sun ; and, if Saul and Jonathan
correspond to the constellation Gemini, David is the legendary
reflection of Leo, while Goliath corresponds to Orion. The
Canon chides the English " sobriety " and " moderation " which
rejects these fantasies !
Winckler's views are expounded in bis new edition of
Schrader's work, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old
Testament (1902) ; and are trenchantly dealt witb by Budde in
his printed address, Das Alte Testament und die Ausgrabungun
(1903). The real originator of the theory is E. Stucken, in
his work Astralmythen der Hebrder, Babylonier und Agypter
(vols. i. Abraham, 1896; ii. Lot, 1897; iii. Jacob, 1901;
iv. Esau, 1901). Abraham is the Moon-god, Lot the Sun,
Sarah is Ishtar, etc.
This "limitless Panbabylonianism," as Budde calls it, has
many modern developments. An instance is afforded in
Wildeboer's recent Commentary on Esther. The Book of Esther,
it appears, goes back for its basis to Babylonia and Elam.
Wildeboer gives the' credit of the " solution " of tbe problem to
Jensen, who thus explains : " Esther reminds us of Ishtar •
Mordecai of Marduk. Esther is the cousin of Mordecai, as Ishtar

NOTE TO CHAPTER III 489
probably of Marduk. For tbe latter is a son of la, while Ishtar
is a daughter of Anu. But Anu, Bil, and la are presumably
viewed as brothers. . . . Haman reminds us of Humman (Homman),
the national god of the Elamites ; Vasti of Masti or Vasti of
tbe Elamite inscriptions — tbe name of a divinity with the
attribute Zana. . . . The history that underlies the story of
Esther must have dealt witfi a defeat of the Elamites or of an
Elamite king. So much appears certain " 1 (Cf. Expository
Times, August 1898.)
In other directions, as in Canon Cheyne's own speculations
on "Jerahmeel" in Encyclop. Biblica and Critica Biblica, the
same tendency to extravagance displays itself. Commenting on
the theory, Professor J. Robertson says : " Tbe ' last word ' of this
criticism is Jerahmeel, which, being interpreted, means ' God pity '
us !" (Address, 16th April 1902). A last example maybe taken
from Siegfried's work on Ecclesiastes (Qoheleth), giving us tbe
latest theory of that portion of Scripture. The sagacity of tbe
critic has split the book up into its diverse elements. First, there
is the primitive author of the book, Q1, a Jew whose faith bas
suffered shipwreck. He is improved on by Q2, an Epicurean
Sadducee, who glorifies eating and drinking. Another glossator,
Q3, resented the depreciation of wisdom, and added a number of
passages which are enumerated. Still sharper opposition to the
denial of divine providence called forth Q4, one of tbe early
Pharisees. This is not all, for there is yet a number of others,
who are conveniently slumped under Q5. As to dates, Q1 may
have written shortly before 200 b.c ; Q2, Q8, Q4, Q5 at various
times down to 100 B.C. The fact that one finds all this retailed
with due gravity by author and learned reviewers suggests the
question whether the sense of humour is not becoming extinct —
at least in tbe department of criticism.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IT

NOTE A— P. 91
K8NIG ON THE PERSONIFICATION THEORY
A pew sentences from Kbnig's discussion in his Neueste Prinzipien
may not be out of place. "Parallels," be says, "have again been
sought in features of the Greek and of the Israelitish tradition
(Seinecke, Cornill). Specially it has been recalled that Greek
tradition attributed to Lycurgus two sons, Eunomus and
Eucosmus, i.e., Law and Order. . . . But is this a sufficient
basis for tbe conclusion that Ishmael and Isaac have in like
manner been ascribed to Abraham ? What a difference there is
between tbe two pairs of names ! Tbe Greek pair, Eunomus and
Eucosmus clearly represent personifications of ideas and of the
results achieved by the great lawgiver. . . . Tbe two names
Ishmael and Isaac cannot be referred to any such design. . . .
How, if in the two names Ishmael and Isaac such personifications
lie before us, could all the particular traits be derived which are
related with respect to Ishmael and Isaac? Were there also
families in Sparta that claimed descent from Eunomus and
Eucosmus ?
" It is further argued that the Hellenes traced their origin to a
tribal ancestor Hellen, who had two sons, iEolus and Dorus, and
two grandsons, Achasus and Ion. I willingly concede that 'it
will occur to no one to see in the bearers of these names individual
persons.' . . . [But] to draw a parallel between these Greek
names and the tribal fathers of Israel is a very hazardous opera
tion. Have we any such histories of Hellen and tbe other four
names as Genesis contains about the tribal fathers of Israel?"
(PP-42, 43).
One might remark also on the vague and fluctuating notices
of the supposititious Eunomus and Eucosmus. Eunomus e.g. is
generally given as the father of Lycurgus.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV 491

NOTE B.— P. 100
THE COVENANT WITH ISRAEL
Katjtzsch has valuable remarks on this subject in his art. In
"The Religion of Israel" in Diet, of Bible (Extra Vol. p. 631).
He says :
" In all the Pentateuchal sources, without exception, there is
a uniform tradition to the effect that the central place amongst
tbe incidents at Sinai is occupied by the concluding of a berith,
commonly rendered Covenant. ... Is all this now to be set
down as fiction, a carrying back of much later theological con
ceptions and terminology, to a time for which no real tradition was
any longer extant ? This is a view to which the present writer
cannot assent, having regard to either external or internal
evidence." After summarising historical evidence, he proceeds : " Would
all this be conceivable, if the proclamation of Jahweh as the God
of Israel — the founding of the Jahweh religion — had taken place,
so to speak, fortuitously, by the incidental passing of the name
' Jahweh ' from mouth to mouth 1 Instead of any theory of this
kind, we get tbe strongest impression that the further develop
ment of the religion of Israel during the period of the Judges
and of the monarchy was the result of some occurrence of a
fundamental kind of whose solemnity and binding force and
character tbe whole nation retained a lively recollection. And
this occurrence can have been nothing but the solemn pro
claiming of the God who had manifested Himself in wondrous
ways as the Helper and Deliverer of the people upon a definite
occasion, and in the binding of tbe people to do His will, and
to worship Him alone. Every one of the numerous allusions
(whether in the Pentateuchal sources, the Prophets, or the
Psalms) to the mighty acts of Jahweh at the Exodus, how with
a strong hand and a stretched out arm He brought tbe hosts of
Israel out of tbe house of bondage, held back the waves of the
Red Sea from Israel, but plunged the chariots and horsemen of
Pharaoh into the waters, — every one of these allusions is at tbe
same time an allusion to the days of Sinai, when for the first
time these mighty acts of Jahweh were brought to the conscious
ness of the people in their true greatness, and extolled accordingly,
and made tbe occasion of a solemn confession of Jahweb as the
God of Israel, and the solemn binding of the people to do His
will." Cf. also Giesebrecht on Die Geschichtlichkeit des Sinai-
bundes.

492 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV

NOTE C— P. 104
THEORIES OP THE EXODUS
This is how Von Bohlen disposes of the Exodus: "Here [in
Egypt], during tbe four following centuries, which the popular
traditions pass over with a prudent silence, the Hebrew family
increased into so powerful a nation, that they entered the field as
conquerors, and succeeded at length in establishing themselves
among the native tribes of Palestine " (Genesis, i. p. 16).
Kuenen accords to Manetho's story of the expulsion of tbe
lepers a credence be is unwilling to give to tbe narrative in
Exodus, and thinks that the Israelites got help from the Hyksos.
"The Book of Exodus does not mention the aid given by the
Hyksos. . . . But a few slight touches furnish us with proof
that the Israelites were supported by tbe nomadic tribes of
Arabia, that is to say by the Hyksos. . . . We may surely take
it for granted that tbe Israelites themselves were not passive
spectators of tbe struggle [between Jahweh and the gods of
Egypt] ; that a conspiracy was formed among them ; that others
besides Moses and Aaron played a part in it. But with regard to
all this the Book of Exodus is silent or confines itself to a few
hints" (Rel. of Israel, i. pp. 120-21, 124). Of the Red Sea
deliverance : " What actually took place there we do not know.
It is undoubtedly founded on fact. But it is very difficult to dis
tinguish the actual circumstances of the occurrence from poetical
embellishments. We will not risk the attempt." (Ibid. p. 126).
Stade allows no value to the history in Exodus, and denies
that Israel as a people came up out of Egypt. But something, he
grants, must have given occasion to the story. "It is very
possible that a part of those Hebrew tribes which' afterwards
coalesced into the people of Israel, passing into Egypt, lived
there, and fell under bondage to the Egyptians. With the aid of
the related nomadic tribes inhabiting the Sinaitic peninsula
outside the kingdom of Egypt, they may have fought their way
to freedom under Moses" (Geschichte, 1887, pp. 129-30). In
the 1881 edition of his Geschichte, Stade is even more emphatic.
"If any Hebrew clan," he says, "once dwelt in Egypt, no one
knows its name" (p. 129).
Colenso adopts Kuenen's theories as "very probably the
basis upon which the Scripture story of the Exodus has been
founded." " No doubt," he says, " the Israelites on their march
to Canaan experienced formidable difficulties, perhaps in crossing
an arm of the Red Sea, and certainly in their passage through

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV 493
the wilderness — the reminiscences of which may have been
handed down from age to age, and given rise to some of the
miraculous stories in the narrative, while others are merely the
result of the natural growth of legendary matter, or are due to
the inventive genius of the writer or writers " (Pent. vi. p. 601).
Budde accepts the Exodus by the help of God as an
incontestable truth, on the strength of Israel's own self -conscious
ness. " All that can be considered doubtful is whether it was
the whole people of Israel that fell under the Egyptian bondage,
or Joseph alone (that is to say, the tribes of Ephraim and
Manasseh, including Benjamin) " (Rel. of Israel, p. 10). No light
is thrown on the how of the deliverance which, in the tradition,
naturally " bears the stamp of miracle " (p. 13).
See summary of Wellhausen's views in Bennett's art. " Moses "
in Diet, of Bible, iii. p. 445.

NOTE D.— P. 106
Patriarchal chronology
Especial exception is taken by Dr. Driver to tbe patriarchal
chronology " as it stands." One example may be given. In an
article in the Contemporary Review (lvii. p. 221), he instances as
a chronological impossibility in the life of Isaac that, " according
to the chronology of the Book of Genesis, he [Isaac] must have
been lying on his deathbed for eighty years." This, however,
supposes that Isaac, at the blessing of Jacob and Esau (Gen. xxvii.)
was only a hundred years old, and not, as ordinarily assumed, and
as the remaining data combine to show, a hundred and thirty-nine
(cf. Gen. xii. 46 ; xiv. 6 ; xlvii. 9, etc.). Neither was he on his
"deathbed" all this while. The objection is an old one (Von
Bohlen, etc.), and has frequently been replied to. On any
hypothesis, if Isaac did not die till after Jacob's return from
Mesopotamia (Gen. xxxv.), a long period must have elapsed between
the blessing and his death.
If the patriarchs were real persons, their lives span the
interval between the age of Hammurabi and the time of the
descent into Egypt ; with four hundred and thirty years added,
we get the interval from Abraham to the Exodus (see p. 422). Tbe
lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, must therefore have been as
long as the narrative represents. This cannot be pronounced
" impossible," since, even in modern times, instances of extreme
longevity, though rare, are still found. It would be wrong, how-

494 NOTES TO CHAPTER IV
ever, to transpose our modern conditions into times to which, prob
ably, they did not apply. In Egypt, according to the authorities, a
hundred and ten years was regarded as the number of a perfect life
(cf. Ebers, art. " Joseph " in Smith's Diet, of Bible, i., 2nd ed.
(1893) p. 1804 ; Vigouroux, La Bible et les Dicouvertes Modernes,
ii. p. 182; Tomkins, Life and Times of Joseph, pp. 78, 135, etc.).
According to some, the venerable moralist Ptah-hotep, of the fifth
dynasty (see below, p. 397), claims to be already that age when
he wrote his book (Birch, Egypt, p. 50; Tomkins, p. 135, etc.).
This was the age of Josepb at his death (Gen. 1. 26).
On some striking modern instances of longevity, see Tomkins,
Joseph, pp. 77-8, and the list might readily be extended. Cf.
also Reusch, Nature and the Bible, ii. p. 249.

NOTE E— P. 112
gunkel's theory op patriarchal histort
Gunkel's own theory of the patriarchal history, it must be
allowed, is not less arbitrary and untenable than any which he
criticises. The " legends " which, according to him, compose the
Book of Genesis, he holds to be no peculiar product of Israel, but
to be derived in the main from Babylonian and Canaanitish
sources. They originated separately, he thinks, were long sung
or recited, and were finally written down singly ; only gradually
they coalesced, and became gathered round leading personages as
we find them. The theory might be described as an explanation
of the patriarchal history on the ancient principle of a fortuitous
concourse of atoms. To the analysis of verses he adds analysis of
personalities. The different names of God — Elohim, El-Shaddai,
Jahweh — denote originally different gods. Jacob and Israel are
different legendary persons. Noah is composed out of three
originally distinct figures; Cain originally out of three, etc.
Still the stories, he holds, are very old ; the legend-formation was
completed by tbe latter days of tbe Judges (c. 1200 B.o.). See
his Die Sagen der Genesis (Introd. to Commentary), passim.
What one fails to find is any explanation of bow tbe monotheism
which is recognised as present in Genesis came to be developed
out of these casually coalescing legends, or any perception of tbe
deeper ideas in the Genesis narratives, or of their organic relation
with the rest of Scripture. In this respect Gunkel stands behind
many of those whom he criticises. On the other hand, with all
his Babylonian leanings, he writes vigorously in his Israel und

NOTES TO CHAPTER IV 495
Babylonien on behalf of the independence of the religious
conceptions of Israel, as against Fried. Delitzsch and others of
that tendency.

NOTE F.— P. 114
THE NAME JEHOVAH IN THE PATRIARCHAL AGB
It seems to us, apart from doubtful Babylonian speculations
(see above, p. 409), that there are preponderating reasons for
regarding Jehovah (Yahweh) as really a very old personal name
of God in the patriarchal families. The J writer uses it freely,
but is far from putting it indiscriminately into the mouths of the
characters of his story. In Gen. iii., e.g., " Elohim " is employed
in conversation. In Gen. ix. 26, we have the compound form,
" Jehovah, Elohim of Shem " (cf . Gen. xiv. 22 ; and the similar
forms in chap. xxiv. 3, 7, 12, 27, etc.). In Gen. xv. 2, 8,
Abraham addresses God as "Adonai Jehovah," and in his
intercession for Sodom as "Adonai" (chap, xviii. 27,31, 32). In
the middle chapters (xxiv.-xxxiv.) "Jehovah" occurs frequently
in connection with Laban, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, etc.
From chap. xxxv. to the end of tbe book it practically disappears
in speech (an instance in Jacob's blessing, chap. xlix. 18). It may
have become disused in Egypt. See further on the antiquity of
this divine name, p. 497 below ; and on the usage of the name,
chap. vii. pp. 221 ff.

NOTES TO CHAPTER V

NOTE A.— P. 128
EARLY IDEAS OF GOD
Man's earliest ideas of God were not, as is commonly assumed,
his poorest. There is really no proof that man's religious history
began with fetishism, ghost-worship, totemism, or any of the
other superstitions with which "primitive religion" is usually
identified. Fetishism is admitted by the best anthropologists to
be a "degeneration" of religion, and an abundance of anthro
pological testimony could be adduced against the sufficiency of
each of the other theories in turn. No savage tribes are found
who do not seem to have higher ideas of God along with their
superstitions (cf. A. Lang's Making of Religion). Man does not
creep up from fetishism, through polytheism, to monotheism,
but polytheism represents rather the refraction of an original
undifferentiated sense, or consciousness, or perception, of the
divine (cf. Rom. i. 19-23).
In bistorical religions, accordingly, the general law, enunciated
by Principal Fairbairn, holds good : " the younger the polytheism,
the fewer its gods" (Studies in Phil, of Rel. p. 22). In the
oldest religions, without exception, along with the polytheism,
we find a monotheistic background.
The oldest texts in Egypt express a monotheistic belief
(cf. Renouf, Rel. of Egypt, pp. 90-91 ; Budge, Egyptian Religion,
chap. L).
The Babylonian religion, it is coming to be generally admitted,
had a monotheistic strain (cf. Winckler, above, p. 409). The
discovery of the Code of Hammurabi; (cf. above, p. 410) has
strengthened that belief. " Tbe position of Ilu as supreme God,
at least in the ideas of Hammurabi," writes C. H. W. Johns, " is
certain, despite recent dicta that there is no trace of a supreme
El in Babylonia" (Expos. Times, March 1903, p. 258).

NOTES TO CHAPTER V 497
Zoroastrianism was formally dualistic, but in the elevation of
its idea of Ahura-Mazda it approached, if it did not actually
attain, a form of practical monotheism (cf. Expos. Times, Jan.
1905, pp. 185 ff.).
Vedism had few gods, while later Hinduism has an incalcul
able number. Behind the Vedic polytheism there stands the
name for God common to all branches of the Aryan family (Deva
= Zeus = Deus), and the proper name of one God (Dyaus Pitar
= Zeus Pater).
China from the oldest times knew and reverenced Shang-ti,
the Supreme God, or Tien, Heaven (cf. Legge, Religions of
China). The monotheistic strain in Greece and Rome was never lost,
and comes out in the early simpler forms of belief and worship,
in the mysteries, in the dramatists and sages, in later Stoical and
Platonic teaching.
Behind the Arabian idolatry of Mohammed's time was the
conception of Allah (cf. Hommel, Anc. Heb. Trad. p. 292;
cf. pp. 82, 88).
The idea that the conception of one God was too lofty for the
Israelites to have attained it, even through revelation, must there
fore be abandoned as untenable. In Hommel's words : " It
becomes clearer every day that the Semites — and more particularly
the Western Semites — had from the beginning a much purer
conception of the Deity than was possessed by any of the other
races of antiquity, such as the Sumerians or Aryans " (Ibid. pp.
292,308-10).

NOTE B.— P. 129
ANTIQUITY OF THE NAME JEHOVAH
The following are a few indications of opinions of critics as to a
pre-Mosaic use of the name Jehovah (Yahweh).
Kuenen says : " Moses can hardly be supposed to have
invented the name ' Yahweh ' ; in all probability it was already
in use, among however limited a circle" (Rel. of Israel, i. pp.
279-80). Wellhausen says : " Jehovah is to be regarded as having been
originally a family or tribal god(?), either of the family to which
Moses belonged, or of the tribe of Joseph " (Hist, of Israel, p. 433).
Schultz says : " It is in itself more likely that such a name
was not invented, but simply found by Moses" (O.T. Theol. ii.
p. 137). 32

498 NOTES TO CHAPTER V
Driver says : " The total absence of proper names compounded
with Yahweh in the patriarchal period makes it probable that,
though not absolutely new in Moses' time, it was still current
previously only in a limited circle, — possibly, as has been
suggested, in the family of Moses " (Genesis, p. xix ; cf. pp. xlvii
and xlix, and references).
Many now trace the name back as far as Babylonia. Cf.
Driver, p. xlix, and see above, p. 409. The one thing not proved
is that it ever denoted in Israel a merely tribal god.

NOTE C— P. 139
PROFESSOR W. R. SMITH'S THEORY OF SACRIFICE
This ingenious scholar develops his theory of the totem-origin
of sacrifice in his Religion of the Semites (cf. especially pp.
247, 257, 262-4, 266-7, 269, 271, 277). The theory resembles
some others in connecting the sacrifice with the idea of food for
the gods (pp. 207, 218), but it works from a different basis, and
gives the act of sacrifice a different interpretation. (1) The god,
in this theory, is conceived of as an animal, from whom the
clan derives its descent (p. 425). (2) The primitive mind, it is
assumed, does not distinguish accurately between gods, men, and
animals. Tbe god, tbe members of the clan, and tbe animals of
the sacred species, are all viewed as of one blood or stock, or as
embraced in the bond of kinship (p. 269). (3) The form in
which kinship is declared, and the bond of fellowship sealed, is a
feast (pp. 247, 257). (4) The peculiarity of the religious feast,
however, is that in it an animal is sacrificed (p. 262). As Dr.
Smith says: "A religious banquet implies a victim . . . tbe
slaughter of a victim must have been in early times the only
thing that brought the clan together for a sacred meal " (p. 262).
Conversely : " Every slaughter was a clan sacrifice, i.e., a domestic
animal was not slain except to procure the material for a public
meal of kinsmen " (p. 263). (5) The last point is, that the fact
that the slaughter of such an animal was sanctioned for a religious
feast implies that it was a sacred, or totem, animal, and itself
belonged to the circle of kinship.
It is difficult to criticise a theory which rests so much on
hypothetical construction, and seems opposed to all the real
evidence we possess as to the Semitic ideas of tbe gods, and
their relation to their worshippers. It will need much stronger
evidence to convince us that the Semite peoples generally passed

NOTES TO CHAPTER V 499
through a totem stage, and that tbe God of Israel was originally
a totem-deity, of animal form, whose blood the tribes of Israel
were supposed to share. It is anything but proved that the
early Semites knew nothing, as this theory asserts, of domestic,
but only of clan life ; that they knew nothing of individual and
domestic sacrifices (Abel, Noah, Abraham) ; that gods, animals,
and men, were at first all held to be of common kinship ; that
"unclean animals" were totem animals, i.e., those whose life was
sacred, with many more assumptions.
But, to keep to the one point of sacrifice, it is pertinent to
ask — Where is the proof that the animals sacrificed had this
character of totems? (1) They were not "unclean" animals;
on the contrary, only "clean" animals were permitted.
(2) The victims were not confined to one class or species of
animals, as on the totem-theory seems necessary. Sheep, goats,
calves, bulls, pigeons, were all used as sacrifice ; but plainly all
could not be totems. Besides, how came many distinct tribes to
have one totem? (3) Why should the totem - animal, of all
creatures, be sacrificed? Ought not the principle of kinship to
have protected it? How should the god, or clansmen, be supposed
to find satisfaction in feeding on the fiesh of one of their own
stock? The closer the bond of kinship is drawn, the greater
becomes the difficulty. (4) As explaining sacrifice in Israel, the
theory takes no account of those ideas on which the ritual of
sacrifice rests in this religion, which are as unique as everything
else about it. It gives no help to the explaining of the expiatory
or propitiatory aspect of the Jewish sacrifices, in which the
peculiar virtue of these sacrifices was believed to consist. The
theory seems to us to be baseless in itself, and to break down
whenever tests from evidence can be applied to it

NOTE D.— P. 141
SACRIFICE OF CHILDREN IN CANAAN
The recent excavations at Gezer in Palestine afford the most
interesting illustrations yet obtained of the sacrifice of children
in Canaan. The site of Gezer was identified in 1871, and ex
cavations were commenced by the Palestinian Exploration Fund
in 1902, under the charge of Professor Macalister, of Cambridge.
The result bas been that seven ancient cities have been unearthed,
one below the other till tbe last foundations have been reached.
The city, as historical notices also prove, is one of the most

SCO NOTES TO CHAPTER V
ancient in Canaan. Its earliest inhabitants were cave-dwellers
of the neolithic age. After them came the Semitic Amorites,
about 2500 B.C., scarabs of the eleventh dynasty of Egypt being
found among the remains. These were dispossessed about 1700
B.C. by a second Semitic race — the Canaanites of the Tel el-
Amarna letters and of the Old Testament. The Israelites
conquered Gezer under Joshua, but could not keep it, and
remained there mingled with tbe Canaanites till the time of
Solomon (Josh. xvi. 10). About 950 b.o. tbe city was conquered
and burnt by the king of Egypt, and presented to Solomon's
wife (1 Kings ix. 16). It was rebuilt by Solomon (ver. 17).
The excavations bring to light painful testimony of the
custom of sacrifice of children. In the Amorite period (2500-
1700 B.C.), the ground beneath the "high place" of the city
was found to be filled with large earthen jars containing the
bones of newborn infants. They were evidently "firstborns"
who had been sacrificed to Astarte. Similar jars containing the
remains of infants were found beneath tbe walls of houses. The
sacrifice in this case was to secure good luck when a new building
was erected. This illustrates tbe statement in 1 Kings xvi. 34
about the action of Hiel the Bethelite at bis ref ounding of Jericho.
The contrast in the religion of Israel is seen in the fact that
firstborns were to be dedicated to Jehovah (Ex. xxii. 29). The
practices above noted continue during the Canaanite period,
though lamps and bowls begin to be used as a substitute for
human sacrifice. After the Israelitish occupation of Canaan the
traces of infant sacrifice still further decline, though, as a
Canaanitish city, Gezer is still marked by this abomination.
Latterly tbe lamp and bowl deposits take' its place. There is
nothing whatever in all this to implicate the Israelitish religion
in sacrifice of children. (See publications of the Palestinian
Exploration Fund, and an interesting article by Professor Lewis
Bayles Paton, Ph.D., Hartford, Director of the American School
of Oriental Research in Palestine, in the Homiletic Review,
Dec. 1904.)

NOTE E.— P. 143
H. P. SMITH ON THE BRAZEN SERPENT
The remarks of this author on Hezekiah's destruction of the
brazen serpent of Moses (2 Kings xviii. 4) deserve quotation as
an illustration of critical methods : —
" The clause which Moses made refers to a well-known narra-

NOTES TO CHAPTER V 501
tive in the account of tbe wilderness wandering. Here we read
that the people were bitten by serpents. Moses is therefore
commanded to make a copper serpent, and raise it upon a pole.
Whoever is bitten and looks at the serpent is healed. It must
be clear that we have here a survival from the primitive totemism
of Israel. . . .
" Why Moses should have made such an image for a people
notoriously prone to idolatry is a question that need not be
discussed. How such an image, if made by Moses, came into the
temple is also difficult to conceive. We are tempted, therefore,
to suppose tbe words which Moses made a later addition to the
narrative and not the expression of Hezekiah's belief or of the
belief of bis contemporaries. In that case we must treat the
Nehushtan as a veritable idol of the house of Israel, which had
been worshipped in the temple from the time of its erection.
Serpent-worship is so widespread that we should be surprised
not to find traces of it in Israel. We know of a Serpent's Stone
near Jerusalem which was the site of a sanctuary (1 Kings i. 9),
and this sanctuary was dedicated to Yahweh. This parallel
makes us conclude that the copper serpent of tbe temple was also
a symbol of Yahweh. If this be so, it may be attributed to Moses,
though in a different way from that taken by the Hebrew author ;
for Yahweh was introduced to Israel by Moses. Probably the
serpent was thought to be a congenial symbol of the god of the
lightning — and that in the desert days Yahweh was the god of
the lightning, or of the thunderstorm, seems well made out" —
Hist, of O.T. pp. 239-40. One does not know whether to
marvel most at the logic of this passage, or at the grounds of the
reasoning.

NOTE F.— P. 144
DILLMANN ON IMAGE-WORSHIP
The following statement from Dr. Dillmann (Exod.-Lev. pp.
208-9) may be compared with those of Kautzsch and others
about image- worship in Israel : —
"It cannot with good reason be maintained that such a
prohibition involving tbe idea of the possibility of making any
representation of God, as well as His invisibility and spirituality,
is too advanced for Moses' time, and bis stage of knowledge, and
therefore cannot have been given by, him, but must have been
just introduced into the Decalogue at a much later date. Apart
from Ex. xxxii., where tbe narrative attributes to Moses a clear

502 NOTES TO CHAPTER V
perception of the unlawfulness of an image of Jehovah, it is
certain, in the first place, that in the traditions of their fathers
a cultus without images is ascribed to the patriarchs; and,
secondly, that in the post-Mosaic period, it was a recognised
principle, at least at the central sanctuary of the entire people,
and at the temple of Solomon, that no representation was to be
made of Jehovah. The worship of the image of Jehovah at
Sinai (Ex. xxxii.), in the time of the judges, and in the kingdom
of the ten tribes, does not prove that the prohibition of images
was unknown, but only that it was very difficult to secure its
proper recognition by the mass of the people, especially of the
northern tribes, who were more Canaanitishly disposed. Or
rather, it was for centuries an object of contention between the
stricter and more lax party, — the latter holding that it forbade
only the images of false gods, the former that it likewise forbade
any image of Jehovah. Prophets such as Amos and Hosea, who
contended against the images of the calves, at Bethel and at Dan,
never announced the principle that no representation can be
made of Jehovah as anything new, but simply presupposed it as
known. However far we go back in the post-Mosaic history,
we find it already existing, at least as practically carried into
effect at the central sanctuary; from whom then can it have
proceeded but from the legislator, Moses himself V

NOTES TO CHAPTER VI

NOTE A— P. 153
OBJECTIONS TO MOSAIC ORIGIN OF DECALOGUE
The following is a brief summary of objections to the Decalogue
from Addis (Docs, of Hex. i. pp. 139-40): —
"It must have arisen long after the Israelites had passed
from a nomad to a settled life. . . . The sabbath implies the
settled life of agriculture. . . . Moreover, if the second 'word'
be an integral part of the whole, the Decalogue must have arisen
after the worship of Yahweh in the form of an ox was considered
unlawful. To this mode of worship neither Elijah nor Elisha
seems to have made any objection [?], and it is very doubtful
whether any protest was made against it before the reiterated
and energetic protest of Hosea. We may then conjecture that
the Decalogue arose in the eighth, or perhaps the seventh century
before Christ"
See in reply to this representation the statement by Dillmann
in previous note, p. 501.

NOTE B.— P. 175
THE FORCE OP EXODUS XX. 24
As stated in the text, Professor W. R. Smith seems to insist, in
opposition to Dr. W. H. Green, that Ex. xx. 24 can only bear
the meaning "in all places," in the sense of a number of co
existent sanctuaries (Prophets, p. 394). To this Professor Green
replies : —
" The collective use of the noun in such a construction is not
denied. But attention is called to the significant circumstance
that where the conception is that of a coexisting plurality, ' all

S04 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
the places ' is expressed in Hebrew by the plural noun (e.g., Deut
xii. 2 ; 1 Sam. vii. 16 ; xxx. 31 ; Ezra i. 4 ; Jer. viii. 3 ; xxiv. 9 ;
xxix. 14 ; xL 12 ; xiv. 5 ; Ezek. xxxiv. 12) ; while in the other
two passages in which tbe phrase is used with a singular noun,
the reference is not to places viewed jointly, but regarded
successively (Gen. xx. 13; Deut xi. 24). The words are used
in a different sense, Gen. xviii. 26 " (Moses and Prophets, p. 311).

NOTE C— P. 179
FREEDOM UNDER THE LAW
It is a mistake to regard the Law as a rigid, inflexible system,
which admitted of no modification of development in details to
suit circumstances (thus W. R. Smith represents " the traditional
view," O.T. in J. C, pp. 227-8). Tbe law was made for man, not
man for the law, and the spirit at all times, in the eyes of God,
was above the letter (1 Sam. xv. 22). The psalmist most devoted
to the law "walked at liberty" under it (Ps. cxix. 45). There
was within the law abundant scope for development, and the
letter of the law itself could, where necessary, give place to the
spirit. Thus, the law for the age of service for the Levites was
modified (if the same kind of service was intended) from thirty
years to twenty-five (Num. iv. 23, 30, 35 ; viii. 24) ; and David
again modified it to twenty (1 Cbron. xxiii. 24, 27). In Num.
ix. 6-12 a second passover was allowed for those who were unclean
or absent at the proper time. The shewbread at Nob (1 Sam.
xxi. 1-6) was, as Christ points out (Matt xiL 3-7), given under
necessity to David and his/ men, though it was not lawful for
any but priests to eat of it In the observance of Hezekiah's
passover we have repeated infractions of the letter of the law —
noted, too, in Chronicles (2 Chron. xxix. 34; xxx. 17, 19).

NOTE D.— P. 182
THE GENEALOGY OP ZADOK

On the genealogy of Zadok see 1 Chron. vi. 8, 53 ; xxiv. 3 ;
xxvii. 17. Wellhausen denies to Zadok, however, an Aaronic,
not to say Levitical descent (Hist, of Israel, pp. 126-43). His

NOTES TO CHAFTER VI 505
counter-theory is that Zadok was no Aaronite, but that, after the
setting aside of the house of Eli, there came in a new hereditary
priesthood at Jerusalem — " at first parvenus and afterwards the
most legitimate of the legitimate," and that tbe derivation of
Zadok from Aaron in 1 Chronicles is a fiction aiming at tbe
legitimising of the newcomers. This construction Delitzsch
characterises as "a manufacture of history (Geschichtsmacherei)
which builds houses on deceitful fancies " (Luthardt's Zeitschrift,
1880, p. 284). Cf. Kittel, Hist, of Hebs. i. p. 124; ii. p. 182 ;
Van Hoonacker, Sacerdoce Levitique, pp. 166 ff.

NOTE E— P. 184
DAVID'S SONS AS PRIESTS

The meaning of the term " priest " in the three passages cited is
obscure. Delitzsch says : " Only crass self-deception can under
stand it of sacrificing priests, who have been mentioned just
before" (Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, p. 63). The common
view that "priest" is used here in some secondary or honorary
sense of royal officials (Ewald, Delitzsch, Klostermann, Baudissin,
Movers, etc.; R.V. marg.), is supported by tbe parallel
passage, 1 Chron. xviii. 17, which need not be set down to the
motive of recognising none but Aaronic priests, but must
represent a general way of understanding tbe expression, and
by the LXX. Dr. Driver, however, positively rejects such
explanation (Notes on Samuel, pp. 219-20, 293-4; so the
Wellhausen school generally) ; and there are certainly difficulties
in proving this exceptional use. It is a case in which, as Van
Hoonacker argues, there is some ground (at least as regards
David's sons) for suspecting the text Inspection will show that
the four passages, 2 Sam. viii. 16-18; xx. 23-26; 1 Kings iv.
2-6; 1 Chron. xviii. 15-18, are closely related: represent, in
fact,' the same list, with some changes of names under Solomon.
But it is also evident that there is some confusion and corruption
in tbe copying. The order is not always the same : " Abimelech
the son of Abiathar" in 2 Sam. viii. 17 (and 1 Chron.) stands
for "Abiathar the son of Ahimelech"; and ver. 18, in which the
words " David's sons " occur, is in other respects admittedly corrupt
(it reads, "Benaiah the son of Jeboiada, and tbe Cherethites
and the Pelethites "). There is nothing about "David's sons"
in the corresponding passage in chap, xx., but instead, "And Ira

506 NOTES TO CHAPTER VI
also the Jairite was priest unto David" (cf. "Zabud the son of
Nathan was priest" in I Kings iv. 5). In the transpositions
of the text, words or names may have dropped out or got
changed, or "David's sons" may be a corruption of other words
altogether. This, of course, cannot be proved either.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII

- NOTE A.— P. 200
THE SELF-CONFIDENCE OF CRITICS
Delitzsch speaks somewhere of " the omnipotence which resides
in the ink of a German scholar " ; and nothing strikes one more
in the recent literature of criticism than the unbounded confidence
with which the most disputable statements are made. Out pages
are full of illustrations. The peremptoriness of Wellhausen is
proverbial. E.g., the Levitical cities are "demonstrably a
metamorphosis of the old Bamoth (high places) " (Hist, of Israel,
p. 37). '"House of God 'is never anything but the house of
an image" (p. 130). The trick of style is one easily learned, and
has infected not a little of our own critical writing. It is not
clear, however, why this peremptory tone should be affected in
cases where the critics manifestly disagree among themselves.
We may take one example from so useful a book as Ryle's Canon
of the Old Testament. The author begins with the general state
ment: "Analysis of the Pentateuch has shown conclusively that
numerous collections of Israelite laws were made at different
times," etc. (p. 22). After mention of the Decalogue and Book of
the Covenant : " Another ancient, and very distinct collection of
laws is incorporated in the section which has been called by
scholars ' The Law of Holiness ' (Lev. xvii.-xxvi.). ... It is a
fact, which no scholars have ventured to dispute, that these
chapters contain extensive excerpts from a collection of laws
whose general character must have closely resembled the Book
of the Covenant, differing only from it in subject-matter so far
as it is occupied more generally with ceremonial than with civil
regulations " (pp. 25-6). " Ezekiel shows unmistakable signs of
acquaintance with a collection of Priestly Laws that we can
certainly identify " (p. 72). We agree (see pp. 308 ff.) ; but leading
critical scholars do energetically dispute both these propositions.
607

508 NOTES TO CHAPTER VII
The "Law of Holiness" is not by them generally put before
Ezekiel. Dr. G. B. Gray, e.g., says, on his side, as confidently :
" Lev. xix. 2 belongs to a code (known as tbe ' Law of Holiness ')
drawn up in the early part of the sixth century B.C." (Divine
Discipline of Israel, p. 41). Further: "Modern Criticism has
probably shown incontrovertibly [if incontrovertibly, why prob
ably?] that the period of the final literary codification of the
Priestly Laws can hardly be placed before the era of the exile.
It teaches, however, no less emphatically that the Priestly Laws
themselves have been gradually developed from previously existing
collections of regulations affecting ritual and worship " (p. 27 ;
italics in last case author's). If this be so, then Kuenen
and Wellhausen must be excluded from "modern criticism,"
for both "emphatically" deny that any written collections of
Priestly Laws existed before the exile, and affirm the contrary.
E.g., "as we have seen, no ritual legislation yet existed in
Ezekiel's time," etc. (Kuenen, Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 231 ; cf.
Wellhausen, Hist, of Israel, p. 480). Besides, as shown in
Chap. IX., if this is allowed, the "incontrovertibly" disappears,
for the one grand reason for putting the laws in the exile is
that they were new.

NOTE B.— P. 206
CORNILL'S DECOMPOSITION OF J
The following indicates the process by which Cornill reached the
conclusion that the unity of tbe J document must be given up : —
"The first incentives proceeded from the Biblical primitive
history; in this both Schrader and Wellhausen marked con
tradictions which made it impossible to maintain the literary
unity. Gen. iv. 16b stands in sharp contrast with the im
mediately preceding vers. 11-16*, since in these the ceasing
of that which in chap. iii. 17 is a curse for all mankind, is
threatened as a punishment to Cain ; .the unquestionably parallel
passages, chaps, iv. 7 and iii. 16, iv. 15 and iv. 24, do not give
the impression of a free reproduction by the same writer, but
rather of imitation ; the same author cannot have written chap.
iv. 26 who already in chap. iv. 1 permitted himself to use with
out hesitation the name Jahve; chap. xi. 1-9 is irreconcilable
with chap. ix. 19, where that appears as a self-evident natural
process which in the other passage is apprehended as the result
of a special punitive interposition of Jahve ; the Noah of chap.
•ix. 20-27, the father of the three sons, ,Shem, Japheth, and

NOTES TO CHAPTER VII 509
Canaan, i.e., the racial ancestor of three specific peoples, is not
the Noah of chap. ix. 18-19, who, through the three sons, Shem,
Ham, and Japheth, is the ancestor of the whole of mankind
after the flood. And this brings us to the weightiest and most
deep-going distinction in the primitive history; we have in it
still clear traces of a tradition which knows nothing of the flood,
which derives the three groups of the whole of humanity from
the sons of Lamech, chap. iv. 20-22, which traces back all
" Nephilim," still existing in historical times, Num. xiii. 33, to
the marriages of the sons of God with the daughters of men.
Since all the passages cited are undoubtedly Jahvistic, while no
trace is found of E, which appears, rather, to have had no
primitive history, there remains no alternative but to surrender
the homogeneity of J " (Einleitung, p. 52).

NOTE C— P. 206
THE VIEW OP J AND E AS
We append a few utterances of recent writers on this subject : —
Budde says : " J and E are throughout not to me persons,
but extensive schools of writers, running their course alongside
of each other " (Judges, p. xiv).
Gunkel says : " J and E are not individual writers, nor yet
redactors of old single documents, but rather schools of narrators "
(Genesis, p. Iviii).
Dr. Cheyne says : " The Yahwists were, in fact, perhaps a
school of writers " (Founders of Criticism, p. 30).
Dr. Driver says that P " seems, as a whole, to have been the
work of a school of writers rather than of an individual " (Genesis,
p. xvi), and no doubt would apply the same to J and E.
Kautzsch says : " A close examination of its (J's) contents
showed long ago that here also we have to do with various strata,
and therefore with the work of a Jahwistic school " (Lit. of O.T.,
p. 37 ; similarly of E, p. 45).
McFadyen says : " More properly they (J and E) were the
work of a school, and represent a literary and religious activity
that ranges over a considerable period. . . . Tbe priestly
document ... is, like the prophetic documents, not the work of
a single author, but of a school, and represents a movement"
(Messages of the Proph. and Priestly Historians, pp. 22, 224).
The Oxford Hexateuch, i. p. x, tabular Contents, says : " J
represents a school rather tban a single author."

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII

NOTE A.— P. 252
THE BREAKING UP OF DEUTERONOMY
An example is furnished in a recent work, The Book of the
Covenant in Moab : A Critical Inquiry into the Original Form of
Deuteronomy, by John GuUen, M.A, D.Sc. (1903), which,
however, the author admits " differs radically from tbat whicb
has come to be regarded almost as a tradition of criticism." We
cannot see, however, that his theory differs much in principle
from some of the other modern attempts. He splits up the book
into a greater number of parts tban the more cautious critics have
done, and seeks to assign to each its place in the total composi
tion. The original appearance of the book he holds, with the
critics, to have been in the reign of Josiah. He makes the book
begin with chap. xxix. 1-4. He leaves out chaps, i.-iv. 9, and
transfers chap. v. 2 to a position introductory to chap. iv. 10 ff.
This original Deuteronomy extended (with omissions) to chap.
xi. 28, but had as its conclusion chap, xxviii. 1-45 (omitting
vers. 2-9) ; chap. xxx. 11-20 : Ex. xxiv. 4-8 (!), and Deut.
xxxii. 45, 46. The Decalogue in chap. v. is excised as unsuitable
to the context, and is relegated to a " Decalogue Edition,"
which appeared some time before the exile. The Decalogue in
Ex. xx. is still later. Successive developments follow through
the addition of "Law Code," a "First Combined Edition,"
a. "Second or Decalogue Edition," a "Third or Minatory
Edition," an "Exilic Redaction," "Post Exilic Additions," and
a "P Redaction." H tbe able author is seriously persuaded that
any book under heaven was ever made by such a process, we feel,
with all respect, that there is hardly any common ground for
argument Oettli is a comparatively conservative writer, who defends
the unity of the main body of Deuteronomy, but even he is badly
510

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII 511
bitten when he comes to the closing chapters. The following is
his analysis of chaps, xxvii. -xxxi v. (Deut. p. 12) : —
xxvii 1-3, Dt. ; 4, R; 5-7% JE; 7b, 8, R; 9-13, Dt ; 14-
26, R ; xxviii 1-68, Dt (with reserve as to enlargements) ;
xxviii 69-xxx. 20, Dt (with redactional changes and trans
positions) ; xxxi. 1-13, Dt; 14, 15, JE; 16-22, introduction to
Moses' Song out of JE; 23, JE; 24-29, Dt ; 30, R; xxxii. 1-
44, from JE; 45-47, Dt. ; 48-52, P; xxxiii. from JE; xxxiv.
1 P, Dt JE; 2-4, JE; 5?, 6, Dt ; 7, P, JE; 8, 9, P; 10-12
Dt. There are elements of truth in this analysis, but it is assuredly
greatly overdone.

NOTE B.— P. 253
DEUTERONOMIO AND PRIESTLY STYLES
In a note to the first edition of his O.T. in J. C. (p. 433),
Professor W. R. Smith cites as "a good example of the funda
mental difference in legal style between the Levitical law and
the Deuteronomic Code," the laws about the cities of refuge
in Num. xxxv. and Deut. xix. The case is worth considering as
" a good example " also of the tendency to overdrive argument.
Allowance in any case must be made for the difference between
a careful original statement of a law, and a later general rehearsal
of its substance in the rounded style of free, popular discourse.
But what are the specific differences? "In Deuteronomy the
word ' refuge ' does not occur, and the cities are always described
by a periphrasis." But the Deuteronomist simply says : " Thou
shalt separate three cities for thee in the midst of thy land (chap.
xix. 2) ; " thou shalt separate three cities for thee " (ver. 1) ;
" then shalt thou add three cities more for thee " (ver. 9) ; and
there is no periphrasis. The phrase " that every manslayer may
flee thither " (ver. 3), " the manslayer which shall flee thither "
(ver. 4), is derived verbally from Num. xxxv. 11, 15. "In
Numbers the phrase for ' accidentally ' is bish'gaga, in Deut. bib'li
da'at." Admitted, but the words convey the same idea, and
are only used twice altogether — in Num. xxxv. 11, 15 and in
Deut iv. 42, xix. 4. " The judges in the one are ' the congrega
tion,' in the other ' the elders of his city.' " But Deuteronomy
says nothing about "judges," and "the elders," who are once
referred to in chap. xix. 12, plainly act in tbe name of the
congregation. "The verb for hate is different." Rather, "the

512 NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII
verb for hate " does not occur at all in Num. xxxv., but the noun
derived from it does (ver. 20), and is translated "hatred," while
in vers. 21, 22, a different term, translated "enmity," is employed,
which expresses nearly the same sense. Had these words
appeared, one in Numbers, the other in Deuteronomy, instead of
standing in consecutive verses of one chapter, they would doubt
less have been quoted as further evidence of diversity. So " one
account says again and again ' to kill any person,' the other ' to
kill his neighbour ' " — a difference surely not incompatible with
identity even of authorship. " Neighbour " is found repeatedly,
alternating with another word, in Lev. xix. (vers. 13, 16, 18 ; xx.
10 — P), and " to kill a person " occurs in Deut xxvii. 25. (Cf . the
Heb. idiom in tbe law itself, Deut xix. 6, 11.) "The detailed
description of the difference between murder and accidental
homicide is entirely different in language and detail." But in
Deuteronomy there is no " detailed description " of ifhe kind referred
to. There is in Num. xxxv. 16-24 ; but Deuteronomy confines
itself to one simple illustration from concrete life, admirably
adapted, it will be admitted, to the speaker's popular purpose
(chap. xix. 5). The statement in Deuteronomy, it is evident,
presupposes the earlier law, and is incomplete without it, occupy
ing only about a dozen verses, as compared with over twenty
in Numbers, while even of the dozen, three are occupied
with a new provision for the number of the cities being ulti
mately raised to nine (vers. 8-10). When, further, Dr. Smith
points out that "Num. xxxv. 11-34 contains 19 nouns and
verbs which occur also in Deut xix. 2-13, and 45 which do
not occur in tbe parallel passage; while the law, as given in
Deuteronomy, has 50 such words not in the law of Numbers,"
he applies a numerical test which, considering the different
character of the two passages, is quite misleading. We have
before us the text of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill, and his
speeches made in introducing it to the House of Commons ; but
what havoc a similar enumeration would make of his title to the
authorship of the Bill ! It is not contended that Moses with
his own pen necessarily wrote out all these laws, any more than
that Mr. Gladstone drafted his own Bill.
We have not, in these remarks, taken any notice of Josh. xx.
3-6, where the language of Num. xxxv. and of Deut xix. is
blended. The Deuteronomic expressions are lacking in the
LXX (Vat), and it is possible they may be a later gloss.

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII 513

NOTE C— P. 258
DEUTERONOMY AS FRAUS PI A
One of Reuss's propositions, endorsed by Wellhausen, is : " Deu
teronomy is the book which the priests pretended to have found
in the temple in the time of Josiah" (Wellhausen, Hist, of
Israel, p. 4).
Kuenen says : " It is certain that an author of the seventh cen
tury b.o. —following in the footsteps of others, e.g., of the writer
of the Book of the Covenant — has made Moses himself proclaim
that which, in his opinion, it was expedient to the real interests
of the Mosaic party to announce and introduce. . . . Men used
to perpetrate such fictions as these without any qualms of
conscience. ... If Hilkiah found the book in the temple, it
was put there by the adherents of the Mosaic tendency. Or else
Hilkiah himself was of their number, and in that case he pre
tended that he had found the book of the law. ... It is true,
this deception is more unjustifiable still than the introduction of
Moses as speaking. But we must reflect here also that the ideas
of those times were not the same as ours, but considerably less
strict" (Rel. of Israel, ii. pp. 18-19). We fancy that the ideas
of the author of Deuteronomy and of Jeremiah will compare
favourably in " strictness " with those of the writer of the
above section.
Cornill says : " We must recognise the fact that we have here
a pseudograph, and that this was known to the persons interested.
. . . The excuse for them must be that they saw no other
means of carrying through their work, planned in the spirit of
Moses and for the honour of Jahve " (Einleitung, pp. 37-8).
Colenso, as seen above (p. 258), thinks Jeremiah may have
been the falsarius. "It is obvious," he says, "that very few
beside the writer may have been privy to tbe scheme, — perhaps
only the priest Hilkiah, and possibly Huldah, and one or two
others" (Pent. Pop. edit. p. 198).
Dr. Cheyne, after toying with, and half -adopting this hypo
thesis in his Jeremiah, in " Men of the Bible " series (pp. 76 ff. :
"What he — Hilkiah — practised, however, was not deceit, not
delusion, but rather t'Zlusion" p. 77), goes wholly over it in hia
Founders of Criticism (pp. 267 ff.). "How is it that Hilkiah,
Shaphan, and Huldah display such imperturbability ? The easiest
supposition is that these three persons (to whom we must add
Ahikam, Achbor, and Asaiah) had agreed together, unknown
to the king, on their course of action" (p. 267). "I quite enter
33

514 NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII
into the dislike of reverent Bible-readers for the theory of ' pious
fraud.' I think that dislike an exaggerated one. No student of
Oriental life and history could be surprised at a pious fraud
originating among priests. But I do not adopt that theory to
account for 2 Kings xxii." [this is simple casuistry] (p. 271).
Hilkiah's conduct in imposing the book on Josiah is justified.
" Such conduct as that of Hilkiah is, I maintain, worthy of an
inspired teacher and statesman in that age and under those
circumstances. It is also not without a distant resemblance to
the course of Divine Providence, so far as this can be scanned
by our weak faculties. Indeed, if we reject the theory of
' needful illusion ' we are thrown upon a sea of perplexity. Was
there no book [Dr. Cheyne's own] on Jeremiah bringing home
the need of this theory to the Christian conscience, to which
Dr. Driver could have referred?" (p. 272). Our ideas in these
days are "more strict" !

NOTE D.— P. 260
oblivion of Charlemagne's code
Dr. Cheyne refers in his Jeremiah (p. 76), in illustration of
2 Kings xxii., to an instance of successful forgery in the history
of England given in Maine's Ancient Law (p. 82). Dr. Green, on
the other hand, cites from Sir James Stephen an apposite case
of the loss pf knowledge of a whole Code — that of Charlemagne.
"When the barbarism of the domestic government," says this
authority, "had thus succeeded the barbarism of the government
of the State, one of the most remarkable results of that political
change was tbe disappearance of the laws and institutions by
which Charlemagne had endeavoured to elevate and civilise his
subjects. Before the close of the century in which he died the
whole body of his laws had fallen into utter disuse throughout
the whole extent of his Gallic dominions. They who have
studied the charters, laws, and chronicles of the later Carlovingian
princes most diligently are unanimous in declaring that they
indicate either an absolute ignorance, or an entire forgetfulness
of tbe legislation of Charlemagne " (Lects. on Hist, of France,
p. 94; Green, Higher Criticism, p. 156).

NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII 515
NOTE E— P. 269
THE LAW OF THE KING IN DEUT. XVII. 14 PP.
Dr. Driver and many critics allow the law of tbe king in this
chapter to be at least in kernel old. Delitzsch says: "Tbe
prohibition to make a foreigner king is comprehensible in the
mouth of Moses, but without motive or object in so late an age
as Josiah's, and generally during the period of the undivided and
divided kingdoms" (Genesis, p. 38). He discusses the subject
more fully in Luthardt's Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 564-5. We can
find, he says, " a suitable Mosaic basis for this law. It is on the
face of it improbable that a leader and lawgiver coming out of a
monarchical country should not have foreseen that the people
would wish to have a king. . . . The thought in ver. 16. that
the passion for horses would lead to a return of the people to Egypt
has hitherto found no satisfactory explanation from the circum
stances of the time of the kings — this warning and threatening
bear still undeniably the character of a time in which the renewal
of the newly lost relation to the kingdom of the Pharaohs was a
pressing alarm." The law, it is thought, is sketched in terms
borrowed from the court of Solomon. It is rather to be inferred
that the description of Solomon's court in the Book of Kings
(1 Kings x. 26-29 ; xi. 1-4) is given in terms partly borrowed
from this law. Tbe familiarity of the author of Kings with
Deuteronomy is undoubted, and he draws up his account of
Solomon's luxury and splendour, particularly of his multiplication
of wives, in such terms as will impress the mind by its contrast
with this law.

NOTE F.— P. 276
MINOR discrepancies IN LAWS
Minor examples of discrepancies are those in the laws relating
to firstlings (Deut. xv. 19, 20; cf. Num. xviii. 17, 18), priestly
dues (chap, xviii. 3, 4), the law of bondservants (chap. xv. 12 ff.;
cf. Ex. xxi. 1-6), the law of carrion (chap. xiv. 21 ; cf. Lev.
xvii. 15), etc. Reasonable explanations have been offered of
most of these difficulties, though a few points may remain unclear.
In the case of the firstlings, Deuteronomy assumes the feast on
the flesh at the sanctuary, without denying that the usual
portions went to the priest ; Numbers lays stress on the latter,

516 NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII
and perhaps means no more than that the sacrifices came under
the law of the peace offerings (cf. Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce,
pp. 405-6). Even if the priests received the whole in the first
instance, it may be presumed that, as in peace offerings generally,
the offerer had a share given back to him. In chap, xviii. 3, 4, the
dues specified are probably additional to those in Numbers. " A
pitiful livelihood truly," as Hengstenberg says (Pent. ii. p. 335),
if this were all ! But the regular income is presupposed. (See
pp. 188, 275.) The mention of the Hebrewess in the law of bond
service (chap. xv. 12) is not a contradiction of the older law ; while
the case of the bondmaid betrothed to her master or master's son
in Ex. xxi. 7 ff. is special, and is not touched on in Deuteronomy.
The modification in the law of carrion (chap. xiv. 21) has probably
in view tbe conditions of settled life in Canaan (cf. Bisseli, Pent.
p. 176), but still is not to be understood as dispensing with the
purifications of Lev. xvii. 15, even for the stranger. Generally,
it may occur that it is hardly conceivable that the author of
Deuteronomy should alter or contradict old laws for no apparent
reason.

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX

NOTE A.— P. 287
KDENBN's EARLY VIEWS OF THE POST-EXILIAN THEORY
In 1861 (five years before the publication of Graf's work).
Kuenen thus expressed himself on the views of Von Bohlen
George, and Vatke, who held, like Graf, that the legislation of
Deuteronomy was earlier than that of the middle books of the
Pentateuch : —
"He (George) assumes that the historical elements of the
Pentateuch are the oldest, that Deuteronomy was written dur
ing the reign of Josiah, whilst the greater part of the laws in
Exodus-Numbers did not exist until after the exile. His argu
ments are partly external, partly internal, i.e., derived from a
comparison of the two legislations. (1) Jeremiah, who knows
Deuteronomy and makes frequent use of it, shows no acquaint
ance with the laws in Exodus-Numbers, as appears from chap.
vii. 21-23, where he appeals to Deut. vii. 6, xiv. 2, xxvi. 18, but
ignores the whole sacrificial Tbora. But Jeremiah could, as
Hosea, Isaiah, and other prophets before him, exalt the moral
commands of the law far above its ceremonial prescriptions, and
consider the former as the real basis of the covenant with
Jahveh, without the implication that a ceremonial code did not
yet exist in his time ; he could even pronounce his conviction
that the laws concerning burnt offering and sacrifice are later
than the moral commands, and still it would not follow from this
that Exodus-Numbers were committed to writing later than
Deuteronomy. (2) Internal evidence. The priority of Deutero
nomy is argued on tbe ground of several strange assertions,
which are not worthy of refutation; to wit, that, before the
Babylonish captivity, there was no distinction between priests
and Levites, high priest and priests ; that the Mosaic tabernacle
never existed ; that the spirit and tendency of Deuteronomy
51!-

518 NOTES TO CHAPTER IX
indicate an earlier period than those of Leviticus. Deut. xxxi.
14 is considered wholly arbitrary as a later addition; xviii. 2,
xxiv. 8, are left out of view. The view of George in this form as
presented by him has been almost universally rejected" (quoted
by G. Vos in Pentateuchal Codes, pp. 173-4). Vos draws from
the quotation some very pertinent morals.

NOTE B.— P. 294
THE UNITY OP THE LAW
The unique character, and essential unity of idea and spirit of
the Mosaic law, are abundantly testified to by critical writers.
The following are examples : —
Ewald writes thus of the sacred seasons : " You behold a
structure simple, lofty, perfect. All proceeds as it were from one
spirit, and represents one idea, and is carried into effect by what
resembles counters exactly matched strung upon one cord. . . .
Whoever has a thorough knowledge of these festivals, will be
persuaded that they have not arisen by slow degrees from the
blind impulse of external nature, nor from the history of the
people, but are the product of a lofty genius " (quoted at length
by Green, Feasts, pp. 50-1, from Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des
Morgenlandes, iii pp. 411, 434).
Riehm says : " Most of the laws of the middle books of the
Pentateuch form essentially a homogeneous whole. They do not
indeed all come from one hand, and have not been written at one
and the same time. . . . However, they are all ruled by the
same principles and ideas, have the same setting, the like form
of representation, and the same mode of expression. A multitude
of definite terms appear again and again. In manifold ways also
the laws refer to one another. Apart from isolated subordinate
differences, they agree with one another, and so supplement each
other as to give the impression of a single whole, worked out
with marvellous consistency in its details " (Einleitung, i. p. 202).
Schultz, who holds that "certainly it was only a later age
that created in detail the several institutions," yet says : "Every
thing is of a piece, from the most trifling commandment re
garding outward cleanliness, up to the fundamental thoughts of
the moral law. Civic virtue is indissolubly linked to piety. . . .
The whole is woven into a splendid unity, into the thought that
this people should represent the kingdom of God on earth, and

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX 519
realise in its national life the main features of the divine order
of things" (O.T. Theology, i. p. 138).
Kautzsch, after referring to the various strata which he
thinks can be distinguished in the Priestly Law, says : " But as
regards the spirit which pervades them, and the fundamental
assumptions from which they start, all the parts bear so homo
geneous a stamp that we have contented ourselves in the ' Survey '
with the common designation P, i.e., Priests' Writing " ( Lit. of
O.T., p. 107).

NOTE C— P. 307
EZEKIEL AND EARLIER LAWS
Cp. Ryle's observations in earlier Note, pp. 507-8 (Canon of O.T.,
pp. 72 ff.). The following sentences from Dr. A. B. Davidson's
Introduction to his Ezekiel ("Cambridge Bible") may be
compared with the text : —
" Inferences from comparison of Ezekiel with the Law have
to be drawn with caution, for it is evident that the prophet
handles with freedom institutions certainly older than his own
time. The feast of weeks (Ex. xxiii 16 ; xxxiv. 22) forms no
element in his calendar ; the law of the offering of the firstlings
of the flock is dispensed with by him ; there is no gilding in his
temple, and no wine in his sacrificial oblations. His reconstruc
tion of the courts of the temple is altogether new ; and so is his
provision in the ' oblation ' of land for the maintenance of priests,
Levites, and prince. ... It is evident that the ritual in his book
had long been a matter of consuetudinary law. He is familiar
not only with burnt, peace, and meat offerings, but with sin and
trespass offerings (xiv. 17). All these are spoken of as things
customary and well understood (xiii. 13, xliv. 29-31) ; even the
praxis of the trespass offerings is so much a thing familiar that
no rules are laid down in regard to it (xlvi. 20). The sin and
trespass offerings are little if at all alluded to in the ancient
extra-ritual literature, but the argument from silence is a pre
carious one, for Ezekiel himself, when not precise, uses the
comprehensive phraseology ' burntofferings and peace-offerings'
(xliii. 27). The people's dues to the priests are also so much
customary that no rules are needful to regulate them (xliv. 30).
Ezekiel is no more a 'legislator' than he is the founder of the
temple" (pp. liii-liv).

520 NOTES TO CHAPTER IX
NOTE D.— P. 313
QUOTATIONS IN DEUTERONOMY PROM JE AND P
Dr. Driver makes a strong point of the difference in the mode
of the references in Deuteronomy to JE and to P respectively
(Introd. pp. 76, 137), but his statements need qualification.
Dillmann, with others, points out that it does not belong to the
task of Deuteronomy to dwell on the priestly laws as it does on
those of the Book of the Covenant, and shows that by no means
all the laws in the latter (hardly anything of Ex. xxi.-xxii 14)
are taken up into Deuteronomy, and what is repeated is for the
most part not verbally repeated, but is modified and expanded
(Num.-Jos. p. 603).
NOTE E— P. 317
LEVITES IN EZEKIEL
It is to be conceded that, while Ezekiel uses "Levites" as
apparently a well-known term for the ministers of the second
order (chap, xlviii. 13), the only "Levites" that come specifically
into his picture are tbe degraded priests (chap. xl. 45). This
agrees with the scope of his representation, and is most naturally
explained by supposing that the Levites had been practically
ousted from the temple by the uncircumcised strangers, and the
degraded priests are viewed as taking their place. It is likely
also that, in the general declension, the Levites themselves had
very largely broken tbe bounds of their order, and had arrogated
to themselves priestly functions at the high places and elsewhere.
They had become by usage and common designation priests also
(cf. Dillmann, Exod.-Lev. p. 461 ; Van Hoonacker, Le Sacerdoce,
pp. 194-5).

NOTE F.— P. 320
ALLEGED CONTRADICTIONS IN THE PASSOVER LAWS
The assertion of Nowack, W. R. Smith, Driver, and others, that
in Deuteronomy (xvi 2) the choice in the passover is not limited
to a lambx as in P, but might be a bullock or a sheep (cf. Driver,
Deut. p. 191), confuses the passover sacrifice in tbe strict sense

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX 521
with the feast that follows. This is not a device of " harmonists,"
but a plain dictate of common sense in comparing the laws.
Kuenen sees no contradiction with the lamb in Deuteronomy
(Rel. of Israel, ii. p. 93). Even in Lev. xxiii. 4 ff., and Num.
xxviii. 16 ff. (P), no mention is made of tbe lamb. Does P,
therefore, not know of it ? The freewill offerings are recognised
in Lev. xxiii. 4-8, Num. xxix. 39; cf. 2 Chron. xxxv. 7-9.
The "passover" in the stricter sense is alluded to in Deut. xvi.
5-7, as in Ex. xxiii. 18, xxxiv. 25. Neither can a discrepancy
be made out of the word used in Deut. xvi. 7 for the cooking of
the lamb, as though it necessarily meant to " seethe " or " boil,"
2 Chron. xxxv. 13 is a decisive proof to the contrary. The word
is there used in both senses — to roast with fire, and to seethe in
pots.

NOTE G.— P. 327
THE MEDIATING VIEW OF THE PRIESTLY CODE
The following will indicate the general standpoint of the
mediating critics. Dillmann says : " The priestly writing was
and remained at first a private document, without royal or public
sanction, and for the most part propagated only in priestly circles "
(Num.-Jos. p. 666). Kittel says: "The wbole character of P
proves it to have been originally not a public ecclesiastical law,
but — though not merely a private document — a programme known
at first to the priests alone, and struggling long for recognition
till favouring circumstances helped it to obtain this" (Hist, of
Hebs.i. p. 102). Baudissin says: "The employment of Levites
for this office [in the sanctuary] appears to be a matter of pure
theory on the part of the legislation, whose system elsewhere also
is based in large measure upon ideal construction " (Diet, of Bible,
iv. pp. 88-9). "The tabernacle, i.e., the antedated single temple "
(p. 89).

NOTES TO CHAPTER X

NOTE A.— P. 345
KLOSTERMANN ON THE RELATION OP JE AND P
The view indicated in the text is substantially that taken by
Klostermann in his Der Pentateuch, pp. 9, 10, etc. Klostermann
takes it to be one of the most conspicuous proofs of the good taste
and feeling for the natural in Wellhausen that he has come to
see that the narrative of Q [ = P], as criticism separates it out,
has no independent subsistence, and is only to be explained by
reference to the Jehovistic narration, and that the part of Q left
out by R [tbe redactor], and compensated for by an element
from JE, is parallel to tbe latter, and presumably not much
different from it. He regrets that Wellhausen has not advanced
to the point of recognising in this sharply-defined Q, whose
narrative is framed with reference to JE, and enclasps this element
as its inner content, the everywhere sought for but nowhere
found redactor himself.

NOTE B.— P. 364
COLENSO'S NUMERICAL OBJECTIONS
The following are a few specimens of the kind of reasoning ex
tolled by Kuenen and others as irrefragable. The instances are
those alluded to in the text : —
First, on the assembling at the tabernacle : the width of the
tabernacle being 10 cubits or 18 ft, then, "allowing 2 ft in
width for each full-grown man, 9 men could just have stood in
front of it . . . allowing 18 inches between each rank of 9
men," they would have reached "for a distance of more than
100,000 ft — in fact nearly 20 miles I or if we reckon the old

NOTES TO CHAPTER X 523
men, women, and children, for a distance of more than 60
miles" (Pent, People's edit pp. 30-31. Cf. Pt L p. 33).
On the priest's duties: "In fact, we have to imagine the
priest having himself to carry, on his back on foot, from St Paul's
to the outskirts of the metropolis, ' the skin, and flesh, and head,
and legs, and inwards, and dung,' even the whole bullock " (Pent.
Pt. i. p. 40). This absurd assertion is slightly toned down in
the People's edition (p. 33), though still with a clinging to the
idea that the priest did all the menial duties himself.
On the sacrifices after childbirth in the wilderness : " Looking
at the directions in Lev. i, iv., we can scarcely allow less than
5 minutes for each sacrifice ; so that these sacrifices alone [250
burnt offerings and 250 sin offerings per diem], if offered separately,
would have taken 2,500 minutes, or nearly 42 hours, and could
not have been offered in a single day of 12 hours, though each of
the 3 priests bad been employed in the one sole incessant labour
of offering them, without a moment's rest or intermission " (Pent.
Pt i. pp. 123-4). The truth is, that, supposing the whole 500
pigeons to have been obtainable, and to have been punctiliously
offered, the whole work could have been done in a couple of
hours ! As, however, we read that the rite of circumcision was
suspended in the wilderness (Josh. v. 5) — a statement which,
at all events, is part of " the story " — it follows that the sacrifices
in question, which are prescribed to be offered 33 days after
circumcision, were not offered at all 1

NOTE C— P. 370
Christ's testimony to the old testament
Wk have not in this argument sought unduly to press our Lord's
testimony, for we allow that His words may fairly be in part
explained by His acceptance of current views of authorship, which
it was no part of His mission to pronounce upon. We do not, by
quoting Homer or Shakespeare under these names, pronounce a
judgment on tbe literary questions involved in the ascription of
certain poems or plays to these persons as their authors. Our Lord
naturally referred to the books He was citing as "Moses" or
"David," or "Isaiah," and no more thought of giving an authori
tative judgment on the history or mode of origin of these books,
than He had it in view to settle questions of modern science as to
the motions of the heavenly bodies, the age of the earth, or the

524 NOTES TO CHAPTER X
evolution of species. But it remains the fact that our Lord did
constantly assume the Mosaicity of the books of tbe law He
quoted; based on the reality of the revelation they contained;
knew in the strength of His divine and human consciousness that
God's word was conveyed to men through them ; had even, if the
narrative of the Transfiguration is to be believed, supersensible
communion with Moses and Elias themselves. Wbile refusing to
be " a judge and a divider " in questions of merely literary interest,
He would, we may believe, have pronounced a very emphatic
judgment on some of the modern theories of Scripture, had these
been brought before Him.

NOTE D.— P. 370
THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
The Samaritan Pentateuch, written in old Hebrew characters,
after being long lost to view, was brought to light again in the
beginning of the seventeenth century, since which time other
MSS. have been acquired. Various views have been taken
of its origin; but that which has most probability, and seems
now generally accepted, connects it with the expulsion by
Nehemiah (chap. xiii. 28 ff.) of one of the sons of Joiada, son of
Eliashib, the high priest, because he had allied himself in marriage
with Sanballat, the Horonite. Josephus (Ant. xi. 7. 8) confuses
the chronology of this incident, and connects it with the founding
of the temple on Mount Gerizim, which he places a hundred
years later, in the time of Alexander the Great The value of
the Samaritan text was at first greatly exaggerated ; latterly,
especially since the exhaustive examination of Gesenius, it has
lost nearly all credit in comparison with the Hebrew. Only
four readings were thought by Gesenius to be preferable to the
Hebrew (Gen. iv. 8 ; xxii. 13 ; xlix. 14 ; xiv. 14), and even
these are now rejected by most On age and origin, see the
discussions in Hengstenberg, Pentateuch, i pp. 69 ff. ; a lucid
examination in Bleek, Introd. i. pp. 366 ff; Ryle, O.T. Canon,
pp. 91 ff. ; and on tbe question of text, and generally, the
valuable article by Em. Deutsch in Smith's Diet, of Bible, iii.
pp. 1106 ff.; Bleek, ii. pp. 371, 391 ff.; W. R. Smith, O.T. in
J. C., pp. 61-62, etc.

NOTES TO CHAPTER X 525

NOTE E— P. 375
EARLY HEBREW WRITING
The square Hebrew character (gradually introduced after the
exile) was preceded by the Phoenician, the origin and early
history of which is obscure. The oldest known example of
this writing is Mesha's inscription on the Moabite Stone (c. 850) ;
the oldest example in Hebrew is the Siloam inscription (reign
of Hezekiah). (Cf. Driver on "Early History of the Hebrew
Alphabet" in Text of Samuel, pp. llff.) A few old seals
(perhaps eighth century) have inscriptions in this character, and
jar-handles found at Gezer (after Solomon) bear the words
" To the king, Hebron " (or other place). It is thought by some
that the use of this character by the Hebrews, or in Canaan
generally, probably does not date much before 1000 b.c
Previous to that time, it is supposed, the script in use was the
cuneiform. The Tel el-Amarna letters (c. 1400) are written in
cuneiform, and cuneiform tablets have been discovered at Gezer
and Lachish. Professor Paton, Director of the American School
of Oriental Research in Palestine, says : " There is no archaeological
evidence that the ancient Babylonian cuneiform was displaced
by the so-called Phoenician character before this date " (Horn.
Rev., Dec. 1904, p. 426; so Conder, The First Bible, p. 75).
This, however, is an inference from our ignorance, and seems
unlikely. The character on Mesha's Stone must have been long
in use, and could not be unknown to the Hebrews. Something
depends on the origin of the Phoenician character itself. Doubt
is now cast on its derivation from Egypt (Taylor's theory), and
connections are being sought with early Minsean (S. Arabic),
Hittite, and other characters. Much is conjectural, but evidence
seems accumulating that an old closely-related alphabet was in
use in very early times and was probably known to the Israelites
(cf. Hommel, Ancient Heb. Trad. pp. 77 ff, 276-7; Sayce,
Higher Crit. pp. 39—44). Further discoveries are no doubt yet
in store for tbe explorer. In pre-Mosaic times the Babylonian
cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphic (while in Egypt) were the
likeliest scripts to be used, and cuneiform tablet-writing probably
in some measure continued after the settlement in Canaan. We
may assume that an alphabetic character was in use in Israel
from the dawn of literature. On connection of early Hebrew
with old Aiabic, cf. Margoliouth, art "Language of O.T.," in
Hastings' Diet, of Bible, iii. pp. 26 ff.

526 NOTES TO CHAPTER X

NOTE F.— P. 375
HYPOTHESES IN CRITICISM
When it is urged that the assumption of early documentary
sources in Israel is a " mere hypothesis," we have to ask — What
is the current critical view itself but a congeries of hypotheses,
many of them of the most doubtful character ? What, e.g., but
hypothesis — if not mere hypothesis — are the assumed J and E
writers, or schools of writers, of the ninth, eighth, and seventh
centuries b.o. and later; or the prolific P school of writers in
the exile; or the numerous hypothetical redactors and inter
polators of the text ; or the Judasan and Ephraimitic localisation
of J and E, etc. 7 What but hypotheses are such statements,
with which critical writings abound, as that "the narrative of
Abraham and Amraphel in Gen. xiv. may be partly based on
information derived from Babylon, possibly by Jews of the
captivity"; or, "we may naturally suppose that the stories
[connected with the Israelitish sanctuaries] were preserved at
these places, and that the authors of the Primitive and Elohistic
documents derived them from the priests, just as Herodotus
gathered information from the priests in Egypt and Babylon " ;
or that " it is probable that the Israelites might borrow or adopt
traditions of their other neighbours, e.g., the Phoenicians,
Philistines, Ammon, Moab, and Edom " ; or that the stories in
Genesis may represent those "told long ago round the camp-
fires of the wandering tribes by mothers to their children, and
repeated by maidens at the well, by the guests at rustic merry
makings, and in the evening gatherings of the peasants when
the day's, work was done " (Bennett, Genesis, pp. 18-21). We
would only ask — Do such casually collected stories yield the
kind of history we have in the Book of Genesis ? Why may
we not in turn "suppose," with far greater probability,
that we have here carefully transmitted traditions of real persons
and events, and that these began to be written down in very early
times — e.g., in Egypt under Joseph? There are as many and
good grounds for the one class of statements as for the other.

NOTES TO CHAPTER X 52;
NOTE G.— P. 376
THE IDEA OF " CO-OPERATION " IN CRITICAL THEORY
It deserves remark how the critical theory itself approximates to
the idea of " co-operation " in its view of the production of the
Levitical laws, and other parts of the Pentateuch, in the exile
and after it, by " schools " of writers working more or less con
temporaneously. Plainly tbe more its Js and Ps and Rs are
brought down into exilian and post-exilian times, the nearer
it comes to a view of joint-production by minds animated by
the same spirit, and governed by one set of ideas (cf. p. 375).
Dillmann comes even nearer in his view of the "simultaneous
working up of the documents of the Pentateuch," by a single
redactor (Genesis, i. pp. 18-21). "It seems," he says, "if one
takes Genesis into consideration by itself, that a simultaneous
working together of the three documents is not excluded, but
rather recommended" (p. 21). Principal Cave also has interest
ingly shown how the radical hypothesis of Vernes, and others of
the extremer school, works round to a practical contemporaneous
ness of authorship (Inspiration of O.T. , pp. 173-5).

NOTE H.— P. 377
STATE OF THE HEBREW TEXT
That there is corruption in the Hebrew text, all existing MSS. of
which are understood to go back to a single archetype (possibly
of the first century a.d. ; cf. Driver, Text of Samuel, pp. xxxvii ff. ;
Swete, Introd. to O.T. Greek, p. 319), every scholar is aware, and
criticism is justified in applying its best skill, with the aid of
versions, etc., to remove its defects. But the statements made as
to the freedoms taken with the text in earlier times are some
times greatly exaggerated. (Cf. W. R. Smith, O.T. in J. C,
pp. 90 ff. ; above all, Cheyne.) Josephus and Pfiilo testify to the
jealous care with which tbe Scriptures, specially the law of
Moses, was regarded, and their testimony carries us back a good
way beyond their own day. "So long a period having now
elapsed," says the former, " no one has dared either to add or to
take away from them, or to change anything". (C. Apion, i. 8) ;
and the latter testifies, "they change not even a word of the
things written by him [Moses] " (in Euseb. Prep. Evang. viii. 6).

528 NOTES TO CHAPTER X
But, apart from versions, often helpful, but requiring to be used
witb caution, we have interesting internal evidence as to the
general fidelity with which the text has been preserved, and the
degree of corruption or change it has sustained. The purity and
beauty of style of the JE narratives in Genesis sufficiently prove
that they cannot be seriously corrupted. Specially, however,
may appeal be made to the numerous parallel passages, of different
types, which furnish us with direct means of comparison.
Allowing for obvious mistakes, intentional changes, and, in the
case of Chronicles, occasional paraphrase and supplement, we
have a large basis of identical matter, showing with what
accurate care the text must have been preserved through long
periods. We may refer to Ex. xxv. -xxxi, with the parallel
recitals of execution of the work in chaps, xxxv.-xxxix. ; the forty
or more sections in Chronicles parallel to others in Samuel and
Kings (e.g., 1 Sam. xxxi. with 1 Chron. x. 1-12; 2 Sam. vii.
with 1 Chron. xvii. ; 1 Kings x. with 2 Chron. ix. 1—12) ; parallels
in Psalms, as Ps. xiv. with Ps. liii ; Ps. xviii. with 2 Sam. xxii. ;
Ps. cv. 1-15 and xcvi, with 1 Chron. xvi. 8-33, etc. When the
length of time and difficulties of transcription are considered, the
wonder is, in the words of Dr. Driver, "that the text of the Old
Testament is as relatively free from corruption as appears to be
the case " (Notes on Text of Samuel^ p. xxxviii). Cf. remarks in
Bleek, Introd. ii. pp. 391 ff.
As to versions, if there have been times when there has been
undervaluation of these, probably the present tendency is to
overvaluation of them, especially of the LXX (on" which see
Swete's Introduction), in comparison witb the Massoretic text
Konig has some remarks on this in his art "Judges" in Diet.
of Bible (ii. p. 809). In concluding on the condition of the text
in Judges, he says (with special reference to Mez on the Bible of
Josephus) : " Still this investigation has confirmed the present
writer's view that the traditional Massoretic text is the relatively
best source from which to ascertain the words of the Old Testa
ment This judgment is also entirely substantiated by the
investigation into the text of Samuel, which Lohr has carried out
in the Kurzgef. Exeg. Handb. on Samuel, 1898, pp. lxixff." Cf.
his "Introduction," pp. 114-6. (On the Samaritan Pentateuch,
see above, p. 524.)

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI

NOTE A.— P. 402
ETHNOLOGICAL RELATIONS IN GEN. X
In addition to the notices in the text, a few words may be said
on the ethnological relations of the Canaanites, as indicated in
Gen. x. 6, 13-15 ff. All ancient writers trace the Canaanites,
including the Phoenicians, to an original seat on the borders
of the Persian Gulf. Thence they found their way westward
and northward into Palestine. Interesting questions that arise
are : (1) When did this emigration (or these emigrations) take
place ? (2) How are the Canaanites to be classed ethnographi-
cally? (1) Biblical and extra-Biblical notices lead us to regard
the Phoenician settlements as the oldest (cf. Gen. x. 15 :
"Canaan begat Sidon his firstborn") Herodotus puts the
founding of Tyre about 2300 years before his own time (ii 14),
or about 2750 B.C., and he is probably not much too early. A
new note of time is furnished by tbe excavations at Gezer (see
above, p. 500), which show that Gezer was taken possession of in
an immigration of Canaanites about 2500 B.C. Probably the
settlements in the south were still later. This brings us to a
time not much earlier than the Elamitic invasion of Gen. xiv.
All the Biblical notices show that before this Palestine was
peopled with other tribes, many of whose names are given, and
the conquest of whom was not completed till long after (Gen. xiv.
5, 6 ; Deut. ii. 10-12, 20-23). (2) Tbe second question is as
to the ethnographical connection. The Phoenicians and the
Canaanites generally spoke a Semitic language. This is usually
supposed to imply that they were of Semitic origin. The Bible,
on the other band, classes them as Hamites (Gen. ix. 18, 22 ;
x. 6). Canaan is said to be the brother of Cush, Mizraim, and
Phut (Gen. x. 6). It is interesting to find that recent scholars,
on independent grounds, seem to endorse this relationship.
34

530 NOTES TO CHAPTER XI
Flinders Petrie, e.g., in his History of Egypt, derives the dynastic
Egyptians from the same region as the Canaanites, i.e., from the
neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf. Thence they worked round
by Pun or Punt (akin to Ethiopia), at the south end of the Red
Sea, into the Nile valley, while another contingent pressed north
ward into the Delta to Caphtor on the Mediterranean coast, and
thence colonised Philistia and Phoenicia. "We see," says Dr.
Petrie, " the sense of the kinship stated in the tenth chapter of
Genesis between Mizraim (Egypt), Caphtorim (Kef tur = greater
Phoenicia on the Delta coast), and Philistim (or the Phoenicians
in Syria) " (Hist, i pp. 12-15). It would be more correct to say
that Gen. x. 14 stops the movement with the Philistines (cf.
Deut ii. 23; Jer. xlvii. 4; Amos ix. 7), and connects the
Phoenicians (Sidon, ver. 15) with the Canaanite branch, perhaps
in a separate immigration by a separate route. The question of
language presents less difficulty when it is remembered that the
Canaanites came from the Babylonian region, and that the
whole west from an early period was saturated with Babylonian
influences. They may easily have brought with them a Semitic
speech.

NOTE B.— P. 408 m
COGNATENESS OF BABYLONIAN AND HEBREW TRADITIONS
The relation of the traditions may be compared with that of
cognate branches of the same family of languages, e.g., Latin and
Greek. Kittel says of the conceptions of the Creation and the Flood :
"They had long been known to Israel, for the simple reason that
they had existed as an immemorial heritage in the East, and the
Israelites had imported the substance of them from their ancient
home. Everything tends to show that this material, whether
found in Babylon or in Israel, is very ancient, and the simplest
explanation of its subsequently distinctive forms in both countries
is to be found in tbe assumption that both go back to a common
original. . . . The Biblical conception of the universe, which
constitutes a part of our faith, and in so far as it does so, is for us
not a Babylonian conception, but extremely ancient knowledge,
partly the result of experience, partly revealed by God and
preserved among His people" (Bab. Excavs. and the Bible, pp.
48-50). Hommel says that with the recognition of the monotheism of
Abraham — the " Friend of God," who migrated from the confines

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI 531
of Babylonia in Palestine, "we are put in possession of a new
light on Primitive Biblical History. ... I now no longer hesitate
to say that the monotheistic concept of the Biblical text, and
specially of the ' Priestly Code ' (Gen. i), must, compared with the
Babylonian version, be regarded as the original " (Anc. Heb. Trad.
pp. 308-10).
" In this," says Oettli, " the possibility is conceded that the
Babylonian myth goes back upon a purer original form, and first
in the course of centuries became developed into the fantas
tically variegated form in which we now possess it" — (Der
Kampf um Bibel und Babel, p. 16).

NOTE C— P. 413
ALLEGED " MIDRASH " CHARACTER OF GEN. XIV
Wellhausen holds this chapter to be one of the very latest
(post-exilian) insertions into the Book of Genesis, and absolutely
without historical worth. He refuses even to acknowledge, with
Noldeke, the excellence in style of the narration (Compos, d. Hex.
pp. 311-3).
Kuenen thinks that in this chapter the redactor " has given
us a fragment of a post-exilian version of Abram's life, a Midrash,
such as the Chronicler had among his sources" (Hex. p. 324).
He allows, however, that " the story is in its proper place, for it
presupposes Lot's separation from Abram, and his settlement in
Sodom" (p. 143).
Kautzsch says of this " remarkable " chapter " that it seems to
have been taken from a Midrash of the patriarchal history," and
regards it as an addition of the last redactor (Lit. of O.T. , p. 119).
Cheyne declares his agreement with Wellhausen, Stade,
Meyer, Kautzsch, in the view that it is " a post-exilian Midrash "
(Oxf. Hex. i p. 168). E. Meyer, quoted by him, thought that the
Jew who inserted it " had obtained in Babylon minute informa
tion as to the early history of the land " (Geseh. des Alterthums,
i p. 166).
Addis asks : " To what does this proof amount 1 Simply to
this, that the writer had acquired some slight knowledge of
Babylonian history, as, doubtless, many a Jew in exile did " (Docs.
of Hex. ii. p. 212).
H. P. Smith speaks of the " desperate attempts " which " have
been made of late years to rescue the historicity of this chapter,
on the ground of Babylonian literature" (O.T. Hist. p. 37).

533 NOTES TO CHAPTER XI
Yet the " Midrash " thus confidently assumed is nothing but
a fiction evolved from the critical imagination. Is it likely that
a Jew in Babylon would be found devoting himself to the
deciphering of Assyrian cuneiform inscriptions! And where
is the proof of his "slight" knowledge?

NOTE D.— P. 418
THE RESURRECTION OP MYTHS
The effect of discovery has been a wonderful resuscitation of the
credit of stories and traditions long regarded as myths. We refer
in the text to the discoveries affecting Menes and the early
Egyptian dynasties. It has been the same elsewhere. "The
spade of Dr. Schliemann and his followers have again brought to
light the buried empire of Agamemnon. Our knowledge of the
culture and power of the princes of Mycenae and Tiryns in the
heroic age of Greece is no longer dependent on the questionable
memory of tradition" (Sayce, Higher Crit. p. 18). " I well
remember," says Professor Kittel, " in my student days how the
scorn of tbe whole body of the learned, and tbe ridicule even of
the comic papers, was poured on him (Dr. Schliemann) when he
came forward to announce his discovery of Priam's city, his
palace, and his treasures. For in these days it was an article of
belief with scholars that our knowledge of the history of ancient
Greece practically began with Herodotus and the time of the
Persian wars" (Babyl. Excavs. p. 74).
The remaiks of the same author on the Cretan excavations are
full of interest in this connection. He tells of " a learned friend
who was on his way back to Crete, and who had seen there the
excavations undertaken by Evans, and was able to boast that he
had sat upon the throne and in the palace of King Minos, a
monarch well remembered by us all at school, and universally
regarded by us as the mere product of a myth" (p. 15). In a
note, he adds : " Minos has frequently been regarded as a Cretan
god, also a personification of Zeus, or again of the Phoenician
domination, and of Baal-Melkart or of Moon-worship, or even as
a Sun-god, " etc.
Again : " Much that we previously held, and seemed justified
in holding, as mythical, is now coming into the light of history ;
and, side by side with the already mentioned Minos, we have now,
through the latest discovered Assyrian inscriptions, come to
accept the historical existence of King Midas of Phrygia, of whom

NOTES TO CHAPTER XI 533
we previously knew nothing but the story of his ass's ears, but
who is now recognised as an actual and worthy ruler of the eighth
century before Christ " (p. 16). He shows how Midas " continues
at the present time to be described as an ancient divinity of the
Northern Greeks and Phrygians, more exactly as a 'blessing-
scattering nature-god' ... in the form of an animal. ... To
this ancient demon of vegetable life," etc.

NOTE E— P. 419
THE identification of rameses and pithom
The problems about the city Raamses (Rameses) in Ex. i 11,
are not yet satisfactorily solved. There would seem, in fact, to
have been two cities of this name — one, of whicb we have
Egyptian accounts, the city of Zoan or Tanis, of the Hyksos, in
the Delta, which Rameses 11. rebuilt, and called by his name ;
the other in the neighbourhood of Pithom, in Goshen (cf. Driver,
Authority and Archaeology, p. 55). Sayce at first (witb Brugsch,
etc.) identified Rameses with Tanis (Fresh Light, p. 65), then
distinguished two cities (Higher Criticism, p. 239), now again
appears to identify the Biblical Raamses with the Egyptian
Pi-Ramessu, but disconnects the latter from Tanis (" Raamses "
in Diet, of Bible, iv. pp. 188-9 ; Monument Facts, p. 90) ; so
Pinches (O.T. in Light of Hist. Records, p. 305). Brugsch, also,
after the discovery of Pithom, gave up his earlier view of the
site of Rameses. It still seems to us more probable that the
" store city " is to be distinguished from the gay and splendid
Pi-Ramessu. On the possible greater antiquity of the name, see
the valuable note in Canon Cook, Speaker's Com., "Exodus,"
p. 486. The situation of Pithom is settled by M. Naville's discovery,
and inscriptions of Rameses 11. show the connection of that
Pharaoh with it M. Naville, at the same time, " never had the
good fortune to find the king's name stamped on any of the
bricks" (Report, July 1883). The evidence, however, is very
abundant that Rameses 11. habitually erased the names of his
predecessors, and substituted his own (cf. Cook, as above, p. 465).
Pollard, in his Land of the Monuments, gives a striking instance
from this very district " A large sphinx in black marble is also
very interesting, as the name of the king in. whose reign it was
carved, and whose portrait it most probably bears, has been erased.
It belonged, unquestionably, to the period of tbe Hyksos, or the

534 NOTES TO CHAPTER XI
Shepherd kings. . . . The only name found on it at present is
that of Rameses tbe Great, who reigned about 1400 B.C. (?). It
was — most unfortunately for the records of Egyptian history —
the practice of this monarch to cut his name on almost every
object that presented itself. This would have been pardonable
enough had he allowed all previous names and titles to remain ;
but he seems to have desired to obliterate all records but those of
his own ancestors" (p. 18). In certain inscriptions, however,
he effaces even the name of his father (Seti i.), and substitutes
his own.

NOTE F— P. 429
BELSHAZZAR AND BABYLON
Valuable confirmatory light is thrown on the Biblical statements
about Belshazzar in a full and interesting communication received
from Professor R. D. Wilson, of Princeton, after the text of this
chapter was printed. Professor Wilson shows that the Aramaic
word for "king" is the equivalent of the Assyrio-Babylonian
words, sarru, malku, pahatu, bel pahate, and hazannu. Each of
the bearers of these titles would also be a "ruler," and the last
three would be called "magnates of the king" (cf. Dan. v. 1.).
"Any one of these Assyrian words might be rendered into
Hebrew also by 'king.'" He shows how this will explain the
title " king " in the cases of both Belshazzar and Darius the Mede.
As to Belshazzar's position in Babylon, he remarks, in agreement
with the view taken in the text : " From the above account of the
course of events it is clear that for the national party that was
opposed to Cyrus, the son of the king, i.e., Belshazzar, must
have been de facto king of the part of Babylon which had not yet
surrendered, from the latter part of the fourth month, when his
father, or predecessor, Nabonidus, was captured, until tbe eighth
month, when the son of the king was killed in an attack made
upon bim in the place whers he was making his last stand, by
Gobryas, the governor of Gutium." Professor Wilson is disposed
to identify Gobryas with " Darius the Mede," and furnishes inter
esting facts on his history, titles, the use of the word " provinces,"
etc. When published in full, Professor Wilson's researches will
be of the greatest value. See his articles on " Royal Titles " in
The Princeton Theological Review, 1904 (April, July), 1905
(January, April).

NOTES TO CHAPTER XII

NOTE A  P. 440
CRITICAL ESTIMATE OF DAVID
In the critical view David is not a character to whom psalms can
suitably be attributed. Reuss, Kuenen, Wellhausen, Stade,
W. R. Smith, Cheyne, etc., agree in this; more mildly Driver.
Thus, e.g., Wellhausen (on Chronicles) : " See what Chronicles
has made out of David ! The founder of the kingdom has
become tbe founder of the temple and of the public worship, the
king and hero at the head of his companions has become the
singer and master of ceremonies at the head of a swarm of priests
and Levites; his clearly-cut figure has become a feeble holy
picture, seen through a cloud of incense," etc. (Hist, of Israel,
p. 182). In the first edition of his O.T. in J. C, Professor W. R. Smith
wrote : " It may appear doubtful whether the oldest story of his
life set forth David as a psalmist at all. It is very curious that
the Book of Amos (vi. 5) represents David as the chosen model of
the dilettanti nobles of Ephraim, who lay stretched on beds of
ivory, anointed. with the choicest perfumes, and mingling music
with their cups in the familiar manner of Oriental luxury " (p. 205).
In the second edition, the passage is slightly modified, and more
prominence is given to the connection of David with the music
of the sanctuary — still, however, conceived of as " borrowed from
the joyous songs of the vintage," and so as giving "the pattern
alike for the melodies of the sanctuary and for the worldly airs of
the nobles of Samaria " (pp. 223-4).
Professor H. P. Smith says : " Later times made David a
saint after their own ideal, a nursing father of the Old Testament
• Church, an organiser of the Levitical system, and the author of
the Psalter. It is this picture of David wfiich has made the

53<5 NOTES TO CHAPTER XII
most difficulty for modern apologists, and which it is impossible
to reconcile with the one we have just considered" (O.T. Hist.
p. 155). Cf. Cheyne, Origin of Psalter, pp. 192-4, 211 ; Aids to the
Devout Study of Criticism, pp. 16 ff.

NOTE B.— P. 458
THE UNITY OF SECOND ISAIAH
It would take us too far afield at this stage to discuss the
complicated problems involved in the unity of Isaiah, nor is this
necessary for our purpose. Tbere seems, however, increasing
reason for distrusting the post-exilian origin of at least certain
chapters of the second portion of the book. We have referred as
examples to chaps, lvii, Iviii., lxv. The theory that these and
similar chapters are post-exilian is not in harmony with the
idolatry and other sins charged upon the people, and with the marks
of Palestinian origin (chap. lvii.). But then the unity of ideas and
style comes in as a reason against separating these chapters too
widely from others, and suggests that, even on critical principles,
a greater portion of Isa. xl.-lxvi. may be pre-exilian tban it bas of
late been customary to allow. It is certain, at anyrate, that the
dictum of Dr. A. B. Davidson no longer holds good without
qualification : " The chapters Isa. xl.-lxvi are all pitched in the
tone of the exile " (O.T. Prophecy, p. 260). Cf. the discussions
of Cheyne on Isaiah (in Com. and in Introduction, 1895), and
Professor G. A. Smith, art " Isaiah " in Diet, of Bible, ii. pp.
493 ff.

NOTE C— P. 458
THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL
It is indispensable to the critical view to make the prophecies in
Daniel terminate in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, but to
effect this the most violent expedients have to be adopted. This
is specially the case with tbe prophecies of the four empires
(chaps, ii, vii.), and of the seventy weeks. Dr. Driver says of
the latter: "When it is asked, which of the two interpretations
labours under the most serious objection, it can hardly be denied

NOTES TO CHAPTER XII 537
that it is tbe traditional one" (Daniel, p. 150). To our mind,
nothing could exceed the violence to the text on the critical
view. 1. It is agreed that the four empires in Nebuchadnezzar's
dream in chap. ii. are identical with the four kingdoms symbolised
by the four beasts in chap. vii. Further, two of these empires
correspond with tbe ram and he-goat in chap, viii., interpreted of
the Medo-Persian and Greek kingdoms. But what are the four
empires ? The traditional view took them to be tbe Babylonian,
the Medo-Persian, the Grecian, and the Roman. On this view,
implied in Josepbus (Ant. x. 10. 4; 11. 7), and seemingly in
Matt xxiv. 15, the description of the fourth empire — the Roman
— is strikingly exact If, however, on the ground that prophecy
cannot reach so far, the Roman empire is omitted, how are tbe four
empires to be made out ? Theories are legion, but everyone seems
forced and unnatural, and each refutes the others. Probably the
view most favoured is that which makes the Median into a separate
kingdom. The order then is — Babylonian, Median, Persian,
Greek. But the resort is a desperate one, for, as the critics
admit, there never existed a separate Median kingdom, and the
Book of Daniel throughout views the Medo-Persian kingdom as
one (chaps, vi. 8, 12, 15 ; viii. 20). To make out tbe theory, a
separate kingdom has to be erected out of the two years' reign of
the obscure " Darius the Mede," who exercised at best a delegated
authority (chap. v. 31 ; ix. 1). If anyone can seriously believe that
this brief reign answers to the description of the fierce, devouring
bear of Dan. vii 5 — one of the "four great beasts from the
sea" (ver. 3) — argument is at an end. The fourth kingdom,
on this theory, is the Grecian. We have tbe Grecian kingdom
clearly portrayed in chap. viii. 5 ff, 21 ff., and again the picture
of the four horns of the he-goat, succeeding the one great horn,
and of the " little born " (Antiochus) growing out of one of these,
is marvellously exact But tbe fourth kingdom of the earlier
visions, though it also has a " little horn " (growing out of ten,
chap. vii. 8, 24), of which Antiochus may be viewed as the Old
Testament prefiguration, bears little resemblance to the picture of
the Grecian — in many respects is entirely diverse from it,— while
the third kingdom, symbolised by the leopard, with its four
wings and four heads (chap. vii. 6), answers precisely to the
latter. ,
2. The seventy weeks in Dan. ix. present a still more difficult
problem  one, indeed, impossible of solution on the assumption
that the 490 years which they represent are to run out about
164 b.c. or earlier. It may be assumed as self-evident that the
writer means the 7 + 62 + 1 weeks of his prophecy to make up

538 NOTES TO CHAPTER XII
the total 70, and that the reckoning cannot begin earlier, though
it may do so later, than the decree of Cyrus in 536 B.c But
the critical theory bas to resort to such makeshifts as making the
7 years at the beginning synchronise with the first part of the
62, and dating the reckoning from Jeremiah's prophecy of the
70 years (606 B.C.), or from later prophecies in 587 b.c This
is "the commandment to restore and build Jerusalem." But
even so the reckoning will not square with the history, and a
serious error in computation has to be assumed. The " Anointed
One " of ver. 25 is different from the " Anointed One " of ver.
26, etc. Much simpler, if predictive prophecy is admitted, is
the view which regards the reckoning as commencing with the
commission of Artaxerxes to Ezra (457 B.C.), which inaugurated
the work of restoration, and was confirmed and extended by the
permission to Nehemiah to build, 13 years later (444 b.c). What
else than Messianic can be the promises of ver. 24, to which the
seventy weeks are viewed as extending ?
On the conflicting views, see at length Pusey's Daniel, Lects.
II., III., TV., and Driver's Daniel, pp. 94 ff, 143 ff.

NOTE D.— P. 458
KUENEN ON UNFULFILLED PROPHECIES
The ablest assault on the fulfilment of the prophecies is in the
work mentioned — Kuenen's Prophets and Prophecy in Israel.
Giesebrecht, who himself, however, allows that some prophecies
are unfulfilled, subjects Kuenen and his follower Oort to a
severe criticism in his Die Berufsgabung der Alttest. Propheten (pp.
1-6), and describes Kuenen's work as a " tendency " production.
In this there is little doubt that he is correct It might be
shown that the objections taken to the fulfilment of the
prophecies rest (1) on the ignoring of a large mass of clear
and striking fulfilments ; (2) in part on the misreading of the
prediction; (3) on claiming that a prophecy is not fulfilled
unless it is fulfilled in its completeness at once ; (4) on over
looking the lack of perspective in distant prophecy, and the
conditional element in prophecy, with other peculiarities indicated
in the text. It is interesting that this work of Kuenen's was
ultimately recalled in its English form by Dr. John Muir, who
had been chiefly instrumental in its production, and contributed
a preface to it

NOTES TO CHAPTER XII 539

NOTE E.— P. 459
THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CANAANITES
On this subject the words of the late liberal-minded Dr. A. B.
Bruce are worth reproducing : —
" Before adverse judgment is pronounced, it is necessary to
bear in mind all tbe Scripture says on the subject. The Scripture
representation is to the effect that while God has destined the
descendants of Abraham to inherit the land of Canaan, yet He
delayed the fulfilment of the promise for this reason, among
others, that the old inhabitants might not be dispossessed or
destroyed before their wickedness had reached such a pitch that
their destruction would be felt to be a just doom. . . . That story
in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis explains what is meant
by the iniquity of the Amorite. . . . Here is no partiality of a
merely national God befriending His worshippers at the expense
of others, without regard to justice ; here, rather, is a Power
making for righteousness and against iniquity; yea, a Power
acting with a beneficent regard to the good of humanity, burying
a putrefying carcase out of sight lest it should taint the air"
(Chief End of Revelation, pp. 139-41.).
Ottley, who quotes part of the above, adds : " After all, tbe
Canaanites were put under the ban, ' not for false bebef , but for
vile actions ' ( Westcott), a significant circumstance whicb plainly
implies that in the execution of His righteous purpose Almighty
God is guided by one supreme aim, namely, the elevation of
human character" (Aspects of O.T. , p. 179).
On the general subject of the development of morality, in
cluding this particular point, in addition to the authorities already
cited, the remarks of Dr. G. T. Ladd, Doct. of Sac. Scrip, i.
chap, vi., and of Dr. C. A. Briggs, Introd. to Study of Holy Scrip.,
pp. 641-45, may be compared. The latter writer, fiowever, is all
too indiscriminating. Such exaggerations as, e.g., that "there is
an entire absence of censure of the sin of falsehood until after the
exile," and that even the prophets " seem to know nothing of the
sin of speaking lies as such " (p. 308), are beyond the range of
comment (cf. above, p. 469). Equally groundless is the asser
tion that Jephthah's sacrifice of his (laughter, and the offering
up of children by fire, were acceptable to God — "the training
was true and faithful for the time " (p. 642). No " traditional "
apologetics is so shocking as this. Not thus is the revelation
in which Dr. Briggs believes to be defended.

INDEXES

Ml

INDEXES

Books and Editions chiefly Referred to

(Unless where otherwise specified, references are to the editions here noted.
Where English translations of foreign boohs exist, references are usually
to these. )

Addis, W. E. :—
The Documents of the Hexateuch
translated and arranged in
Chronological Order, with In
troduction and Notes, vol. i.
1892 ; vol. ii. 1898.
Baethgen, F. : —
Beitrdge our Semitischen Religions-
geschichte. Der Gott Israel's
und Die Goiter Der Heiden,
1888.
Die Psalmen, in Nowack's " Hand-
kommentar," 1892.
Baudissin, W. "W. Graf. : —
Die Geschichte des Alttest. Priester-
thums untersucht, 1889.
Art. "Priests and Levites" in
Diet, of Bible (iv.).
Bennett, W. H. : —
A Primer of the Bible, 1897.
The Booh of Joshua, in "Poly
chrome Bible," 1899.
Genesis, in " Century Bible."
Arts. "Moab," " Moses," etc., in
Diet, of Bible.
Bleek K -
An Introduction to the Old Testa
ment, 2nd edit. 1865. E.T., 2
vols. Bonn's Lib., 1875.
Bbuce, A. B. : —
The Chief End of Revelation, 1881.

Brugsch, H. K. : —
History of Egypt under the
Pharaohs, E.T., 2 vols. 1879.
Budde, Karl : —
Religion of Israel to the Exile,
1899.
Das Alte Testament und die Aus-
grabwngen, 2nd edit. 1903.
Budge, E. A. Wallis : —
A History of Egypt, vols, i., ii.
1902 (8 vols, in all), in "Books
on Egypt and Chaldaea."
Egyptian Religion, in do., 2nd
edit. 1900.
Buhl, E.:—
Canon and Text of the Old Testa
ment, E.T., 1892.
Cabpenter, J. E. : —
See below, Oxford Hexateuch.
Cave, A.: —
The Inspiration of the Old Testa
ment Inductively Considered
(Congregational Union Lectures),
1888.
Cheyne, T. K.:—
Founders of Old Testament Criti
cism, 1893.
The Origin and Religious Con
tents of the Psalter (Bampton
Lectures, 1889), 1891.

643

544

INDEXES

Arts, in Eneyc. Biblica ; Isaiah in
"Polychrome Bible"; numerous
other works.
Colenso, J. "W. : —
The Pentateuch and Booh of
Joshua Critically Examined,
Parts i.-vii. 1862-79.
Same, People's Edition, Pts. i.-v.
abridged, 1 vol. 1871.
Oonder, 0. E.: —
The Bible and the East, 1896, and
The First Bible, 1902.
Cornill, 0. H.:—
Einleitung in das Alte Testament,
1891.
History of the People of Israel,
1898.
Davidson, A. B.: —
Old Testament Prophecy, 1903.
The Theology of the Old Testament,
in "Inter. Theol. Lib.," 1904.
Biblical and Literary Essays,
1902.
The Book of the Prophet Ezekiel,
in "Cambridge Bible" Series,
1892.
Arts, in Expositor, and arts.
"Angel," "God," "Prophecy,"
etc., in Diet, of Bible.
De Wette, W. M. L..—
Beitrdge zur Einleitung in das
Alte Testament, 2 vols. 1806-7.
Introduction to the Old Testament,
1817, 3rd edit. E.T. (1843),
Boat., 1858.
Delitzsch, F. : —
New Commentary on Genesis, 2
vols. E.T. 1888.
Biblical Commentary on the
Psalms, 4th edit, revised.
E.T., 3 vols. 1887-89.
Messianic Prophecies (Lectures),
E.T., 1880.
Messianic Prophecies im Historical
Succession, E.T., 1891.
Arts. " Pentateuch-kritische Stu-
dien," in Luthardt's Zeitschrift
fur kirchliche Wissenschaft,
1880, etc.
Delitzsch, Fried. : —
Babel and Bible: a Lecture on
the Significance of Assyriological
Research for Religion, E.T.,
1902 (a large literature growing
out of this).

Dillmann, A. : — '
Commentaries on the "Hexa
teuch," Die Genesis, 4th edit.
1882 ; Exodus wnd Leviticus
(on basis of Knobel), 1880;
Numeri, Deuteronomium und
Josua, 1886.
Genesis Critically and Exegetically
Expounded, E.T. of above, 2
vols. 1897.
Handbuch der Alttestamentlichen
Theologie, 1895.
Art. " Chronik " in Herzog's Real-
encyc. (iii.).
Driver* S. E.: —
An Introduction to the Literature
of the Old Testament, in "Inter.
Theol. Lib.," 7th edit. 1898
(1st edit. 1891).
The Book of Genesis, with Intro
duction and Notes, 1904.
A Critical and Exegetical Com
mentary on Deuteronomy, in
"Inter. Crit. Com." 3rd edit.
1902.
The Book of Daniel, with Intro
duction and Notes, in " Cam
bridge Bible" Series, 1900.
Notes on the Hebrew Text of the
Books of Samuel, with Introduc
tion, 1890.
Other works, and arts. "Joseph,"
etc., in Diet, of Bible.
Duhm, B.: —
Die Theologie der Propheten, 1875.
Ebers, G. M.:—
Aegypten und die Bilcher Moses,
vol. i. 1868.
Art. "Joseph" in Smith's Diet.
of Bible (2nd edit.).
Ewald, G. H. A.:—
History of Israel, 3rd edit. E.T.,
8 vols. vol. i. 1867.
Prophets of the Old Testament, 2nd
edit. E.T., 5 vols. vol. i. 1875.
Fbipp, E. T.:—
The Composition of the Book of
Genesis, with English Text and
Analysis, 1892.
GlESEBBEOHT, F. : —
Die Berufsgabung der Alttesta
mentlichen Propheten, 1897.

INDEXES

545

Gbap, K. H.:—
Die Geschichtlichen Bilcher des
Allen Testaments, 1866.
Gray, G. B. :—
Numbers, in "Inter. Crit. Com.,"
1903.
The Divine Discipline of Israel,
1900.
Other works, and arts, in Exposi
tor, etc.
Green, W. H. :—
Moses and the Prophets, 1888.
The Hebrew Feasts, 1886.
The Higher Criticism of the Pen
tateuch, 1895.
The Unity of the Book of Genesis,
1895.
Gunkel, H. : —
Schopfung und Chaos in Urzeit
und Endzeit, 1895.
Genesis, ubersetzt und erklart, in
"Handkommentar," 1901.
The Introduction to this work
published separately tinder the
title, Die Sagen der Genesis.
Israel und Babylonien, 1903.
Zum Religionsgeschichtlichen Ver-
stdndnissdes Neuen Testaments,
1903.
Hengstenberg, E. W. : —
Dissertations on the Genuineness
of the Pentateuch, E.T.,t2 vols.
1847.
Hilprecht, H. V.:—
Explorations in Bible Lands
during the Nineteenth Century,
1903.
Hommel, F. : —
The Ancient Hebrew Tradition as
illustrated by the Monuments,
E.T., 1897.
Arts. " Babylonia," etc., in Diet.
of Bible; arts, in Expository
Times, etc.
Van Hoonacker, A. : —
Le Lieu du Culte dans la Legisla
tion rituelle des H&breux, 1894.
Le Sacerdoce Ldvitique dans la Loi
et dans VHistoire des Hibreux,
1899.
Jeremias, A.: —
Das Alte Testament im Lichte des
alien Orients, 1904.
35

Johns, C. H. "W.:—
The Oldest Code of Laws im, the
World; the Code of Laws pro
mulgated by Hammurabi, King
of Babylon, 2285-2242 B.C.,
1903.
Assyrian Deeds and Documents,
3 vols. (1898, 1901).
Art. "Code of Hammurabi" in
Diet, of Bible (Extra Vol), etc.
Kautzsch, E.: —
An Outline of the History of the
Literature of the Old Testament,
E.T., 1898.
Die Bleibende Bedeutung des Allen
Testaments, 1903..
Die Genesis mit Ausserer Unter-
scheidwng der Quellenschriften
(by Kautzsch and Socin), 1888.
Art. " Religion of Israel" in Diet.
of Bible (Extra Vol.).
King, L. W.:—
Babylonian Religion, in " Books
on Egypt and Chaldsea," 1899.
Kirkpatrick, A. F.: —
The Books of Samuel, in "Cam
bridge Bible" Series, 2 vols.,
1880-82.
The Book of Psalms, with Intro
duction and Notes, in do.,
1902.
The Divine Library of the Old
Testament, 1896.
Other works.
Kittel, R.-: —
A History of the Hebrews, 2 vols.,
1888,1892; E.T. 1895.
The Babylonian Excavations and
Early Bible History, E.T. 1903.
Klostermann, A. : —
Der Pentateuch, 1893.
Geschichte des Volhes Israel, 1896.
. Arts, in Neue Kirchliche Zeitschrift
(1897), and art. " Chronik " in
Hauck's Realencyc. (iv.).
Kohler, A. : —
Lehrbuch der Biblischen Geschichte
Alten Testaments, vol. i. 1875 ;
vol. ii. 1884 ; vol. iii. 1892.
Art. "Abraham" in Hauck's
Realencyc. (i.), etc.
Konig, E.: —
Einleitung in das Alte Testament,
1893.

54«

INDEXES

Die Hauptprobleme der altisraeliti-
sehen Religionsgeschichte, 1884.
Neueste Prinzipien der alttesta-
mentliehen Kritik, 1902.
Bibel und Babel, 1902.
Art. " Judges " in Diet, of Bible,
etc.
Kuenen, A.: —
The Prophets and Prophecy in
Israel, E.T., 1877.
The Religion of Israel to the Fall of
the Jewish State, E.T., 3 vols.
1882-83.
National Religions and Universal
Religions (Hibbert Lectures),
1882.
The Origin and Composition of the
Hexateuch, E.T., 1886.
Ladd, G. T.:—
The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture,
2 vols. 1883.
McFadyen, J. E. :^-
The Messages of the Prophetic and
Priestly Historians, 1901.
Moore, G. F.:—
Judges, in " Inter. Crit. Com.,"
1895.
Mozley, J. B.: —
Ruling Ideas in Early Ages, 1877.
Oehler, G. F.: —
Theology of the Old Testament,
E.T., 2 vols. 1874.
Oettli, S.: —
Das Deuteronomium und die Bucher
Josua und Richter, in Strack and
ZSckler's " Kurzgefasster Kom-
mentar," 1893.
Der Kampf um Bibel und Babel,
1903.
Von Orelli, C. : —
The Old Testament Prophecy of the
Consummation of God's Kingdom,
E.T., 1885.
The Twelve Minor Prophets, E.T.,
1893.
Commentaries on Isaiah, Jeremiah,
etc.
Ottley, R. L.: —
Aspects of the Old Testament
(Bampton Lectures), 1897.
A Short History of the Hebrews,
1901.

Oxford " Hexateuch " : —
The Hexateuch according to the
Revised Version, arranged in its
Constituent Documents by Mem
bers of the Society of Historical
Theology, Oxford. Edited, with
Introduction, etc., by J. Estlin
Carpenter, M. A., and G.Harford -
Battersby, M.A. (Mr. Carpenter
writes the Introduction), 1900.
Perowne, J. J. S. :—
The Book of Psalms, 2 vols., 2nd
edit. 1870.
Peters, J. P.: —
Nippur, 2 vols. 1897.
Petrie, W. M. Flinders : —
A History of Egypt, vol. i. 1894 ;
vol. ii. 1896.
Ten Tears' Digging in Egypt, 1893.
Other works, reports, and articles.
Pinches, Th. O. : —
The Old Testament in the Light of
the Historical Records and Le
gends of Assyria and Babylonia,
1902.
Pusey, E. B.:—
Daniel the Prophet, 2nd edit.
1868.
Reuss, E.: —
Geschichte der heiligen Schriften
Allen Testaments, 2nd edit. 1890.
L'Histoire sainte et la Loi, 1879.
Riehm, D. E. : —
Einleitung in das Alte Testament,
2 vols. 1889-90.
Messianic Prophecy, E.T., 1876.
Robertson, J.: —
The Early Religion of Israel
(Baird Lecture), 1892.
The Poetry and the Religion of the
Psalms (Croall Lectures), 1898.
Ryle, H. E.:—
The Canon of the Old Testament,
1892.
Other works; arts, in Diet, of
Bible.
Sayce, A. H.:—
Fresh Light from the Ancient
Monuments.
The "Higher Criticism" and the
Verdict of the Monuments, 1894.
Early Israel and the Surrounding
Nations, 1899.

INDEXES

547

Monument Facts andHigher Critical
Fancies, 1904.
Numerous other works and ar
ticles.
Schrader, E.: —
The Cuneiform Inscriptions and
the Old Testament, 2nd edit.
E.T., 2 vols., 1885, 1888.
Schultz, H.: —
Old Testament Theology, 4th edit.
E.T., 2 vols. 1892.
Smend, R. : —
Lehrbuch der Alttestamentlichen
Religionsgeschichte, 1893.
Earlier works and articles.
Smith, W. R.:—
The Old Testament in the Jewish
Church, 2nd edit. 1892 (1st
edit. 1881).
The Prophets of Israel, 2nd edit.
1895 (1st edit. 1882).
The Religion of the Semites, 1889.
Kinship and Marriage in Early
Arabia, 1885.
Other works and articles.
Smith, H. P.:—
The Boohs of Samuel, in " Inter.
Crit. Com.," 1899.
Old Testament History, in " Inter.
Theol. Lib.," 1903.
Smith, G. A.:—
Modern Criticism and the Preaching
of the Old Testament (Tale
Lectures). 1901.

Stade, B. : —
Geschichte des Volhes Israel, vol. i.
1887 (1st ed. 1881).
Straok, H. L.: —
Die Bucher Genesis, Exodus, Levi
ticus, und Numeri, in " Kurtz-
gefasster Kommentar," 1892.
Einleitung in das Alte Testament,
1898.
Thatcher, G. W.: —
Judges and Ruth, in "Century
Bible."
Tomkins, H. G. : —
Abraham and his Age, 1897.
The Life and Times of Joseph, 2nd
edit. 1893.
Wellhausen, J.: —
Prolegomena to the History of
Israel, with reprint of article
"Israel" from Ency. Brit.
(cited' Hist, of Israel), 1885.
Israelitische und Judische Ge
schichte, 3rd edit. 1897.
Die Composition des Hexateuch,
3rd edit. 1899.
Westcott, B. F. : —
The Bible in the Church, 4th edit.
1875.
Westphal, A.: —
Les Sources du Pentateuque, vol. i.
1888 ; vol. ii. 1892.
Winckler, H. : —
The Tell-el-Amama-Letters, 1896.
Die Babylonische Kultur in ihren
Beziehungen zur wnsrigen, 1902.

Scripture Passages referred to

(Verses are in parentheses: contiguous verses are sometimes grouped.)

Genesis.
i.-ii. (3) ; 197, 227, 236, 337, 342,
346, 403, 406-7.
ii.— iii. 226-7, 347.
ii. (4)-iv. 197, 212, 346, 403-4.
i. 277, 467 (26-7); 347 (31).
ii. 227 (5-21).
iii. 221, 495; 37 (15); 508 (16,
17);'125 (22).
iv. 114, 227 (1); 156 (3, 4); 508
(7); 524 (8); 133 (4, 16); 508
(11-26); 350 (16-24); 399 (16,
17); 223, 227 (25-6).
v. 197, 226, 347; 337 (1); 349
(32).
vi.-ix. 342, 347; vii., viii. 348.
vi. 217 (1-4); 337 (7); 197, 347-
8 (5-22); 338 (13, 17).
vii. 112 (2, 8); 197 (11-16); 348-
9-50 (1-23).
viii. 348-50 (1-20); 41, 112, 156
(20, 21).
ix. 337; 197 (1-18); 314 (4); 338,
374 (11, 15); 349, 374 (19, 20);
227, 495 (26); 350, 508, 529 (18-
27).
x. 128, 351; 349 (1); 91 (6, 13 ff.);
351, 400 (6-12); 529-30 (6-15);
231 (16); 232 (18).
xi. 226, 402; 197, 350, 508 (1-9);
351 (27-32); 108 (31).
xii. 197, 239, 361, 413; 33, 37 (3);
108, 351 (4-6); 136, 209, 232,
370 (6); 210 (8); 221, 236, 238
(10-20); 238-9, 351 (13, 17).
xiii. 109, 197; 238 (1); 351 (6, 11,
12); 232, 370 (7); 136 (18).
xiv. 107-8-9, 217, 337, 339, 351,
413, 531; 370 (6-7); 136, 231
'13); 365 (14); 275 (20).

Genesis — continued.
xv. 217; 230, 233 (1); 495 (2, 8);
337 (14); 232, 470 (16); 231 (21).
xvi. 344; 352 (1-17); 236 (4-14);
93 (11, 12); 343, 361 (15, 16).
xvii., xviii. 362.
xviii.-xx. 352.
xvii. 107, 197, 337, 341-2; 44,
114, 352 (1); 373 (8-19); 352
(18).
xviii. 362; 136 (1); 130 (14); 37,
86 (18, 19); 41, 44, 125 (25);
504 (26); 31, 32, 495 (27).
xix. 113 (1, 15); 338, 343, 352
(29); 115 (30); 105 (31 ff.).
xx. 197, 212, 217, 219, 236, 238-
9, 342, 361; 230 (1); 233 (3);
109, 223, 504 (13); 231 (14, 17);
238-9 (18).
xxi. 197, 217, 361; 219, 252 (1-7);
231, 236-7 (9-21); 233 (12);
113, 234 (17); 124 (22); 136
(25, 30 ff.); 210 (33).
xxii. 140, 210, 220; 233 (1); 113,
230, 233 (1-20); 524 (13); 37 (18);
210 (19).
xxiii. 109, 197, 336-7, 342, 353.
xxiv.-xxxiv. 495.
xxiv. 227, 353; 495 (3-27); 125
(3); 108 (4, 7, 10); 338 (10); 136
(16); 230 (62).
xxv. 108 (7-10); 197 (7-17); 236
(9); 342 (19, 20, 26).
xxvi. 238; 239 (1); 236, 238 (2-12);
254 (5); 361 (6 ff.); 136, 238
(15, 18, 19); 233 (24); 124 (27,
28); 236 (33); 342 (34, 35).
xxvii. 71, 493; 177 (7); 209 (10 ff.);
93. 209, 370 (40); 108 (43);
342, 353 (46 ff.).
648

INDEXES

549

Genesis — continued.
xxviii. 71; 342, 353 (1-9); 113,
209-10, 220, 234-5, 361 (10 ff.);
209 (13); 130 (15 ff.); 138, 211,
222, 236, 275 (17-22).
xxix. 231, 342, 353 (24, 29).
xxx. 71; 231 (3).
xxxi. 113, 361 (11-13); 342, 353
(18); 251 (14, 15, 23); 124, 142
(19-35); 40, 231 (30-4); 230
(37); 138 (45-7).
xxxii. 365 (4, 5, 10); 210, 232
(24 ff.); 209 (30 ff.); 251 (48-50).
xxxiii. 230.
xxxiv. 251; 210, 236, 342, 353;
471 (7, 31).
xxxv. 493, 495; 124, 142 (2, 4);
136, 233, 236, 342, 353, 361,
373 (7-15); 232 (10, 21); 343
(24); 108 (28, 29).
xxxvi. 373 (39).
xxxvii. 71, 343 (2); 210 (14); 232
(3, 34); 233 (14-20); 237 (27, 28,
36).
xxxviii. 366, 470; 234 (10-22);
367 (20); 211 (22); 471 (24).
xxxix. 222; 237 (1); 230 (7); 222-
3, 470 (9).
xl. 230 (I); 223 (8). xl.-xliii. 218.
xii. 124, 223 (16-52); 343, 353, 493
(46).
xliii. 114 (14); 222 (29).
xliv. 222 (16).
xiv. 218, 222; 493 (6); 232 (27, 28).
xlvi. 366; 156 (1); 232-3 (1, 2); 343
(6 ff.); 353 (8-27); 365 (15); 276
(27).
xlvii. 353 (6-11); 493 (9); 415 (17).
xlviii. 230 (1); 373 (2); 353 (3-7);
113 (15-16); 232 (22).
xlix. 138 (4); 353 (1, 12, 13, 29 ff.);
368 (3); 524 (14); 495 (18); 37
(19); 114 (25); 108 (28-33).
1. 218; 108 (12, 13, 15).
Exodus.
i. 337, 354 (7 ff.); 276-7 (5, 14);
419, 533 (11).
ii. 230-1, 423 (5 ff.); 129, 354
(25-6).
iii. 212, 222, 224, 226; 231 (1);
113 (2, 5, 6); 129, 232 (13-16).
iv. 224, 355 (4ff.); 231 (27); 356
(30).

Exodus — continued.
v. 423; 356 (1); 80 (6, 14); 470
(15 ff.).
vi. 212, 226, 354; 336, 340, 361
(2ff.); 114 (3); 177 (12, 30).
vii.-xii. 354.
vii. 355 (8ff.); 73(26-7).
viii. 337, 355-6 (1-7).
ix. 355 (10); 356 (27).
x. 356(3 ff.). xi. 356(10).
xii. 301, 314, 320; 124, 310, 355
(12); 366 (12, 31 ff.).
xiii. 140 (2, 11, 12); 254 (3-6);
222 (17-19); 113 (21).
xiv. 113 (19-24).
xv. 101; 114, 123-4 (11); 254 (26).
xvi. 404 (22-30). xvii. 231 (6).
xviii. 152, 222, 278; 404 (16 ff.).
xix. 231; 116, 125, 254 (3-6).
xx.-xxiii. 99, 247-8.
xxi.-xxii. (14), 520.
xxi. -xxiii. (231).
xx. 40, 102, 124, 134, 268 (2-5);
254 (2-17); 231 (10); 373, 404,
407 (11); 134 (23); 155, 157,
175-6, 273, 503 (24-26).
xxi. 276, 515 (1-7); 470, 516 (7 ff.);
231 (21-23).
xxii. 155, 470, 475 (14-19); 134,
268 (18-21); 500 (29).
xxiii. 40 (4); 475-6, 305 (9-12);
134, 176, 268 (13-33); 519 (16);
157, 171, 521 (18, 19); 113 (20);
254(20-3); 125,139(24); 124(32).
xxiv. 160; 231 (2, 4, 16); 80, 510
(4-8); 354 (9).
xxv.-xxxi. 528.
xxv.-xxxvii. (19), 170.
xxv. 160; 161 (10 ff.); 137 (21);
170 (22).
xxvii. 161 (1 ff.); 171 (20, 21).
xxviii.-xxxi. 170. xxviii. 190 (6).
xxix. 170 (42, 43). xxx. 298(11-16).
xxxi. 310 (13, 14); 373 (17).
xxxii. 122, 142, 145, 211, 276, 502;
48 (15); 143 (4).
xxxiii. 3-5 (167); 231 (6); 166-8,
170 (7); 161 (9).
xxxiv.-xl. 336. xxxv. -xxxix. 528.
xxxiv. 476 (6, 7); 254 (10-26); 153
(12-26); 137 (13); 268 (14-17);
320 (18-26); 519 (22); 167 (30).
xxxvii. 277 (1). xxxviii. 172 (8).
xl. 167 (1), 161, 167, 169-70 (34-
37).

550

INDEXES

Leviticus.
i. 523; 157 (2, 3).
iii. 173 (Iff.); 314(17). iv. 523.
vii. 172 (16); 314 (26-7); 173
(28 ff.).
ix. 169 (17); 192 (5).
x. 354 (1 ff.); 310 (9, 10).
xi. 337; 314-6 (4-20); 310 (43-5).
xiii. -xv. 314-15.
xv. 101; 114, 123, 129 (11).
xvii.-xxvi. 160, 308, 324, 328, 507.
xvii. 176, 297. 311 (1-4); 314-
15 (1-3, 23-25); 276, 515-16 (15).
xviii.-xx. 310.
xviii. 314-15 (21 ff.); 470 (24 ff.).
xix. 123 (4); 512 (13, 16, 18); 311,
322 (21, 22); 314-15 (26, 31);
102 (36).
xx. 512 (10).
xxi.-xxii. 310.
xxi. 183 (10); 311 (1, 17, 21, etc.).
xxii. 102 (33).
xxiii. 320-2, 521 (4 ft); 324 (20);
311 (27-32); 102 (43).
xxiv. 328.
xxv. 305, 314 (2 ff.); 311 (8 ff.);
304, 311 (22, 32-3); 102 (55).
xxvi. 254, 309-10, 328, 339-40;
179 (30); 305 (34-5).

Numb BBS.
i. 186, 191-2 (47 ff.).
iii. 186(6 ff.); 191 (6, 31); 367 (43).
iv. 191-2 (9-14); 163 (15, 19); 298,
504 (23-35).
viii. 186 (5ff.); 298, 604 (24);
191-2 (26).
ix. 321 (4, 5); 504 (6-12); 162,
170 (15-23).
x. 179(16-20); 129(29); 137, 161-
2-9 (33-36).
xi.-xii. 170.
xi. 169 (1, 10, 16); 166 (16 ff.);
81, 168, 230, 451 (24-32).
xii. 166, 168-9 (4 ff., 14, 15).
xiii. 356; 277-80 (1-29); 230 (29);
509 (33).
xiv. 279, 356; 161, 169 (10-14);
281 (25); 162, 168 (44).
xv. 364 (2ff.); 161 (6); 172 (8-10);
476 (30-1); 310 (37-41).
xvi. 206, 236, 280, 358-9, 361
(2-11, 12-15); 191-2 (9); 168,
318, 476 (24-27).

Numbers — continued.
xviii. 191 (2); 317, 515 (3, 4); 188,
274-5, 298, 314-5, 515 (20-26,
21-31).
xix. 192 (17).
xx. 280-1, 359 (Iff.); 278 (2ff.,
10, 12); 161 (6); 276 (12); 373
(14).
xxi. 142 (8, 9); 132, 179 (22 ff.);
121 (29).
xxii. 179 (41).
xxiii. 230(15); 168(21).
xxiv. 168 (2).
xxvi. 367; 279 (65).
xxvii. 278 (12, 13); 276 (13 ff.).
xxviii. 320-1, 521 (16 ff.).
xxix. 529(39).
xxxi. 167(9); 161(15).
xxxii. 357 (7 ff.); 279, 358 (12); 282
(19).
xxxiii. 280-1; 81 (2); 179 (52).
xxxv. 185 (2, 6, 8); 511 (11, 15);
512 (11-34); 183 (25, 28).
Deuteronomy.
i.-iv. 248, 252-3, 276, 339, 510.
i.— iii. 268.
i.-iv. (9), 510.
i. 282 (1, 5); 97, 373 (8); 278 (9 ff.);
276-9 (22-3, 37-8).
ii. 279 (1, 2); 251, 372, 529-30
(10-12, 20-23).
iii. 276, 278, 282 (20-27).
iv. 46 (6-8, 32-35); 177, 510 (10 ff.);
268 (19); 276, 278 (21); 101,
277, 337, 407 (32, 34); 373
(32, 37); 281-2 (41-49); 511
(42).
v.-xi, 248, 252-3.
v. 251, 276, 373; 510 (2); 102, 153
(6, 15).
vi. 73 (7, 20-5); 97 (10).
vii. 269 (1, 2); 267 (5, 25); 517
(6); 325 (13).
viii. 325 (7-20).
ix. 276; 279 (22 ff.); 177 (25).
x. 137, 182, 187, 192, 277, 279
(1-6); 280 (6, 7); 162, 186-7 (8);
373 (15); 276 (22).
xi. 277 (4); 280 (6); 177 (10, 11);
75 (19); 325 (14-16); 504 (24);
510 (28); 282 (30).
xii.-xxvi. 248, 250, 252-3, 263,
. 268,276.

INDEXES

55i

Deuteronomy — continued.
xii. 276, 325; 125, 267-8, 504 (2 ff.);
274 (6); 157, 176, 187-8, 274,
297, 314 (7-20); 470 (29 ff.).
xiii. 270, 476.
xiv. 337; 517 (2); 262, 276, 311,
314, 515 (3-21).
xv. 314, 170 (Iff.); 475 (7ff.);
187-8 (11); 516 (12); 275-6,
515 (19, 20).
xvi. 314, 320 (1-17); 101 (3, 6, 12);
521 (5-7); 324 (8); 137 (21).
xvii. 268, 476 (2-7); 455 (10 ff.);
191-2, 325 (12); 262, 264, 185
(9, 18); 314, 515 (14 ff.).
xviii. 185, 187, 191, 270, 275, 314,
316, 515-6, 518 (1-8); 267 (9 ff.);
325 (18); 40 (9-14).
xix. 511(2); 512(5).
xx. 269(1-20).
xxi. 191 (5); 470 (10, 14); 368 (15,
17).
xxii. 476 (1-4); 268 (6-8); 306
(8, 12); 470-1 (13-30); 314 (30).
xxiii. 269 (2-9); 470 (17).
xxiv. 185. 262, 518 (8); 475 (14-
xxv.' 325(13-16, etc); 269(17-19).
xxvi. 181 (5); 277 (6); 354 (7);
274-5 (12-15); 517 (18).
xxvii.-xxxiv. 511. xxix.-xxxiv. 248.
xxvii. 214; 263 (3); 175, 273 (5-
7): 81 (8); 512 (25).
xxviii. 252-3; 510 (1-45); 185
(9); 132 (36, 64); 325 (68).
xxix. 510 (1-4); 374 (13); 325
(23).
xxx. 34 (6); 186-7 (8); 49 (10-
16); 510 (11-20).
xxxi. 266 (9); 81, 162, 169, 248,
262, 283 (9, 19, 24-26); 161,
166, 170, 251, 283-4 (14, 15,
23); 518 (14).
xxxii. 123 (21); 248, 276. 278
(48-52).
xxxiii. 248; 262 (1); 130 (2).
xxxiv. 248, 251.

Joshua.
i.-xii 216. iii., iv. 162-3, 185, 240.
iii.-vi. 170.
i. 425(4); 49,370(7,8).
ii. 241 (9, 24).
iii. 137 (6>; 143 (7).

Joshua — continued.
iv. 162 (7, 9, 18).
v. 321 (10, 11).
vii. 476(l0ff.).
viii. 162 (23); 81, 214, 370, 379
(30-35).
x. 241-2 (7 ff.).
xi. 241 (1-14, 15 ff.). xii. 241.
xiii. 240-1 (1, 2, 13). xiv. 185(4).
xv. 268 (10); 81 (15, 49); 230
(19); 240 (13-19, 63).
xvi. 215 (1-3); 240, 500 (10).
xvii. 240(12ff.).
xviii. 240 (2 ff.); 380(9).
xx. 512 (3-6).
xxi. 186; 185(8).
xxii. 176, 215 (9-34). xxiii. 215.
xxiv. 101, 215-6; 101 (4-7); 241,
243 (11, 18); 138, 370 (26, 27);
230 (29, 32); 182 (33).

Judges.
i. 240; 171 (1); 384 (7); 242 (8);
81, 143 (11, 14); 130 (19, 22);
380-1 (21, 29); 425 (26).
ii. 177, 466 (1-5).
iii. 143(7); 241 (8 ff., 12 ff.).
iv. 241; 474 (4-6).
v. 76, 129 ff., 131, 143; 383 (15-
17).
vi. 384; 241 (1 ff.); 255 (7-10);
175 (18-26); 177 (24, 26); 143
(28-32).
vii. 384.
viii. 374 (14); 177 (17); 237 (24);
141,143(27); 81(34).
ix. 136(37); 384(24,56).
x. 143 (6); 241, 255 (6-16).
xi. 130 (11); 177 (12); 121, 131 ff.
(24); 470 (27); 140 (30-40).
xiii. 241 (Iff.); 175 (16).
xvii.-xviii. 143.
xvii. 40; 382 (2-4); 142 (3, 14);
144, 177 (3-6); 381-2 (6, 12).
xviii. 381-2; 142, 144 (14, 20);
122, 143, 145, 170, 385 (29-31).
xix.-xxi. 58, 383, 385.
xix. 381 (1 ff.); 170 (18); 384 (23-
4, 30).
xx. 384 (6ff.); 162, 170-1, 177,
182, 191 (18, 23, 26-28).
xxi. 385 (1-14); 177 (2-4); 171,
321 (19).
xxii. 177.

552

INDEXES

1 Samuel.
i.— ii. 306. i.— iii. 172, 386.
iv.-vii. 386-7.
i. 172 (3, 7, 9, 21, 25).
ii. 189 (11, 18); 171-2 (14-22);
255 (17-36); 182, 190 (27-36).
iii. 189 (1, 15); 162, 171-2 (3);
326 (14); 171, 451 (19-21).
iv. 189(1); 137,161-2-3, 171(3-5).
vi. 323 (3); 162-3, 189 (15).
vii. 58, 255, 384; 178 (1); 162,
164 (1, 2); 179, 386 (2-17); 504
(16).
viii. 255, 386; 164 (2); 505 (17, 18).
ix.-x. 180, 386. ix. 451 (9).
x. 255(11-27); 386(16, 17-25).
xi., xii., xiii. (2)-xiv. (46), xv. 386.
xv. 140(33), 179, 504(22); 190(27).
xvi. 441 (7). xvii. 441.
xviii. 190 (4); 441 (5, 7, 14-16).
xix. 58 (18-24). xx. 505 (23-6).
xxi. 171, 178, 442; 179, 504 (1-6).
xxii. 442 (2); 306 (18).
xxiii. 442; 190 (6, 9); 443 (7 ff.);
177 (18).
xxiv. 443 (2 ff.); 190 (5, 12).
xxv. 442 (15, 16).
xxvi., xxvii., xxix. 443.
xxvi. 121, 131 ff. (19).
xxx. 504 (31). xxxi. 528.
xxxv. 190(7).
2 Samuel.
ii. 443 (Iff., 4, 11).
v. 443; 242(6-8).
vi. 162, 386, 444; 137, 162 (2, 7);
190 (14); 183-4 (17, 18).
vii. 37, 444, 528; 166 (6).
viii. 444, 528; 183 (18).
ix.-xx. 386. xi. 444.
xii. 445(10-12).
xiii. 445(14); 190(18).
xx. 183, 189, 505 (23-6).
xxi. 140(1-14). xxii. 446; 190(18).
xxiii. 390(8).
xxiv. 439(1); 385,390(9); 175(18).
1 Kings.
i. 501 (9). ii. 182 (26, 27, 35).
iii. 177, 179 (2); 173, 175, 183
(4, 5); 162 (15).
iv. 505-6; 183(5); 390(26).
vi. 162 (19); 323 (20, 23).

1 Kings — continued.
vii. 145 (29); 323 (48).
viu. 250, 283, 380; 162, 170 (1-16);
172-3, 183, 185, 370 (4 ff.); 164
(6); 321 (2, 65-6); 184 (3, 6, 10);
102 (12 ff.); 101 (16, 51-53);
183 (62-64).
ix. 416, 500 (16, 24); 305, 321,
323 (25).
x. 390(22); 425,515(26-9).
xi. 317; 144, 515 (1-5); 416 (1, 18,
21, 40); 180 (7, 8); 146 (29 ff.);
145 (40).
xii. 145 (1-3); 321 (9); 143 (28).
xiii. 146 (2). xv. 183 (6).
xvi. 146 (1, 2); 146, 500 (30-4).
xviii. 175 (31). xx. 426 (34).
xxi. 147 (21-24).
xxii. 58; 426(1); 390(49).
2 Kings.
i. 426 (1). ii. 146 (23).
iii. 426(4).
v. 130 (15 ff.); 132 (18).
vii. 425 (6). viii. 137 (9).
xii. 181-2(10); 322(16).
xiv. 250, 283, 370 (5, 6). xv. 427.
xvii. 255; 427(1-6).
xviii. 143,257,500(4ff.); 427(13 ff.);
416 (21).
xix. 257; 427 (9, 37).
xxii. 256-7; 514; 181 (4, 8).
xxiii. 259; 181 (4); 257 (2, 24, 25);
139, 267, 270 (4-12); 321 (21-3).
xxiv. 457(1).

1 Chronicles.
vi. 504 (8, 53). viii. 486 (1-32).
ix. 487 (1). x. 528 (1-12).
xi. 389, 390 (11). xii. 389.
xv. 388 ff.; 191-2(2); 183(27).
xvi. 183 (2); 185, 191-2 (4, 37);
450 (7-36); 528 (8-33); 173
(39, 40).
xvii. 528; 166 (5). xviii. 505 (5-18).
xxiii.-xxviii. 368.
xxiii. 293, 299, 388-9; 440 (5);
298, 504 (24, 27); 192 (30).
xxiv. 182, 504 (3). xxv. 440.
xxvii. 504 (17).
xxviii. 388.
xxix. 185 (5 ff.); 387(29).
xxx. 504 (17, 19).

INDEXES

553

2 Chronicles.
i. 173 (3). iv. 323 (19)
v. 173, 185 (5); 388 (4, 5, 11-14).
vi. 183 (3, 12); 178 (5, 6).
vii. 183 (4 ff.).
viii. 305, 320 (13).
ix. 528(1-12); 390(21,25).
xii. 426.
xiii. 390 (3, 17); 388 (4 ff.).
xx. 390(36).
xxiii. 388; 185 (18). xxv. 370 (4 ff.).
xxix. -xxx. 388.
xxix. 191-2(11); 179(34).
xxx. 321; 179(17, 19); 185(27).
xxxiii. 427 (11-13).
xxxiv. 257, 388; 321 (1 ff.); 621
(7-9).
xxxvi. 457 (6 ff.).

Ezra.
i. 504 (4).
ii. 298, 439; 299, 439 (41 ff.).
iii. 322 (4); 297-8 (2 ff., 8); 439
(10, 11).
vi. 370(18); 322(22).
vii. 247; 295 (6, 14); 439 (7, 24).
viii. 298 (15 ff.).
Nehemiah.
vi. 296 (10-19).
viii. 247, 290, 296; 295 (1, 2-8);
322 (11 ff.).
ix. 291.
x. 439 (28, 29); 298 (32, 39).
xi. 439, 448 (22, 23).
xii. 192, 439 (44-7).
xiii. 370 (1); 298 (6); 296 (10 ff.);
624X28 ff.).
Job.
i. 190 (20). ii. 190 (12).
vii. 439 (17, 18). xiii. 230 (11).
Psalms.
(Divisions of Psalter, 197, 148.)
i. 49, 264, 377, 439. 450. ii. 438-9.
iii., iv. 446-7.
v. 447 (7). vii. 447, 476 (4).
viiir 407, 409. x. 439.
xi. 447 (4). xiv. 228. 528
xv. 447. xvii. 377 (4).

Psalms — continued.
xviii. 434, 4 38, 446-7, 528 ; 130 (7 ff . ) ;
377 (21, 23).
xix. 447 (1-6); 49, 264, 377 (7-14).
xx., xxi. 438-9. xxiii., xxiv. 447.
xxv. 377. xxvii. 447 (4-6).
xxviii. 438. xxix., xxxii. 447.
xxxiii. 438-9.
xl. 45 (5); 158, 322 (6); 228 (13-17).
xii. 197 (19). xlii.-l. 447.
xliv. 435; 101 (1).
xlvi., xlviii. 438, 448. li. 447.
liii. 228, 528.
Iv. 447. lvii. 228 (7-11).
Ix. 447; 228 (5-12); 438 (6 ff.).
lxi., lxiii. 438, 447. lxviii. 130 (7 ff . ).
lxx. 228. lxxii. 438, 448 (20).
lxxiv. 435; 451 (9).
lxxvii. 101 (12-20).
lxxviii. 101; 73(3,4).
Ixxix. 435; 449 (2, 3). lxxx. 438 (1).
Ixxxiv. 438, 447 (1). lxxxvi. 438 (8).
Ixxxvii. 35. lxxxix. 195 (52).
xovi. 450, 528; 123 (4, 5).
xcix. 438. ci. 438, 447.
cii. 435. civ. 407. cv. 450, 528.
cvi. 450; 197 (48). cviii. 228.
ex. 438.
cxix. 49, 264; 504 (45). oxxiv. 435.
exxvi. 435. exxxii. 438 (8).
exxxv. 438 (5), 304 (20).
exxxvi. 438 (2).
oxxxvii. 435; 439 (3, 4).
exxxviii. 438 (1).
exxxix. 438, 476.

Isaiah.
i. 38 (2); 157-8, 324-5 (10-15).
ii. 180, 462 (2); 123 (3).
iv. 324 (5); 34 (22). v. 38 (1-7).
vi. 158; 451 (11-13).
vii. 34, 461 (14). xi. 38 (16).
xiii. 458. xvii. 139, 268 (7, 8).
xix. 416 (11); 139 (19). xx. 398 (1).
xxviii. 35 (16).
xxix. 324 (1); 38, 95-6 (22).
xxx. 416 (2, 3); 439 (29).
xxxii. 34 (1).
xxxiii. 34 (15, 16); 324 (20); 95 (24).
xxxvii. 455 (26-36).
xxxviii^ 461 (5).
xxxix. 457 (6-7).
xl.-lxvi. 95, 435, 458, 536.
xii. 96 (8); 458 (21-8).

554

INDEXES

Isaiah — continued.
xliii. (7, 8. 25-28), xliv. (11, 19, 21),
xiv., xlvi., xlviii., 458.
xiv. 34 (22, 23).
li. 38, 92, 96. 101 (1, 2, 9, 10).
liii. 33-4. liv. 374, 407 (9).
Iv. 45 (8, 9). lvi. 158 (6, 7).
lvii., Iviii. 458; Iviii. 158 (13, 14).
Ix. 34; 158(7).
lxi. 35, 305 (1. 2).
lxiii. 269 (1-6); 98-9 (11); 96 (15).
lxv. 458. Ixvi. 158. (23).

Jeremiah.
ii. 101 (6); 38 (17). v. 259 (30-1).
vi. 259 (3-8).
vii. 317; 177-8 (12); 157, 617 (21-
24).
viii. 317; 504 (3); 259, 294 (8).
xi. 100 (4). xiv. 294 (14). .
xvii. 439, 450 (8); 158 (24-27).
xviii. 464 (7-10). xxii. 461 (18,19).
xxiii. 34(5); 294(32).
xxiv. 504 (9).
xxv. 461; 457 (11, 12).
xxvi. 178 (6); 464 (17-19).
xxix. 504 (14). xxxi. 34 (31-4).
xxxii. 34 (39, 40); 139, 141 (35).
xxxiii. 450; 95 (14-26); 158 (17,
18); 38 (26).
xxxiv. 251 (13 ff.).
xxxviii. 461 (14 ff.).
xl. 504(12). xliii. 416.
xliv. 324 (10); 416 (30).
xiv. 504 (5). xlvi. 416 (17).
xlvii. 416 (1); 530 (4).
xlviii. 132 (7). xlix. 269 (17, 18).
liii. 322 (10). Ezekiel.
v. 308, 324 (6). viii. 317.
xi. 308, 324 (12).
xiii. 294(6,7,19); 519(13).
xxviii. 428(3).
xxxi. 416 (2, 18). xxxii. 416 (2).
xxxiii. 38, 95-6 (24). xxxiv. 604.
xxxvi. 34 (26, 27).
xl.-xlviii. 158, 181, 289, 306-7.
xl. 307, 322 (39), 317, 520 (45, 46).
xiii. 322(13). xliii. 322(19); 519(27).
xliv. 183, 316, 318 (3, 4 ff.); 191-2
(11, 15); 307, 322, 519 (29-31).
xiv. 183(7-23); 619(17).

Ezekiel — continued.
xlvi. 322, 519 (20).
xlvii. 462; 450 (12).
xlviii. 317, 520 (13).

Daniel.
i.-vi. 428. i. 457 (Iff.).
ii. 536; 458 (31 ff.).
v. 536 (31). vi. 537 (8, 12, 15).
vii.-xii. 428.
vii. 536; 458 (1 ff.); 537 (3, 5-8, 24).
viii. 5'i?3 (29). ix. 537.
Hosea.
ii. 325(8); 100(15).
iii. 139 (4); 180 (5).
iv. 471 (2, 10-14); 325 (4, 6); 322
(8); 211 (15).
viii. 38, 100 (1); 145, 152, 158, 325
(11-13).
ix. 325(3-5).
xi. 101(1); 38(1-4); 325(8).
xii. 97 (5, 6, 12); 325 (7, 8, 13);
321-2 (9); 98, 101 (13).
xiii. 141, 145(2); 325(6).
Joel.
i. 324 (9, 13, 14).
ii. 324(1, 15-17); 34(28-9).
iii. 269(19). Amos.
i. 180(2).
ii. 38, 324-5 (4); 38, 101 (10);
121, 143 (25-6).
iii. 38, 125 (1, 2); 146 (14).
iv. 275 (4).
v. 146, 211 (4, 5); 324 (21, 22);
121 157, 268, 364, 456 (21-7).
vi. 445 (5). vii. 89, 97 (9, 16).
viii. 146,211(14). ix. 530(7).

Jonah.

ii. 450 (2-10). MlOAH.
iii. 457(12). iv. 180(2); 467(10).
v. 34, 461 (2, 3); 139 (13).
vi. 38, 96 (3, 4); 44, 140 (7. 8).
vii. 98 (4); 38, 95-6 (20).

INDEXES

555

i. 324(15).

Nahum.

iii. 449(19).

Habakkuk.

ii. 34 (11).

Zephaniah.

Haggai.

ii. 34 (6, 7). Zeohariah.
iii. 297 (1); 34 (8). vi. 34 (12).
Malachi.
i. 296 (6-14).
iii. 185 (1); 296 (7-15).
iv. 98, 370 (4).

Matthew.
v. 3. 38, 477 (17, 18); 470 (43-5).
xv. 3 (3, 6). xix. 467 (3-9).
xxi. 3 (42).
xxii. 3 (29, 31, 32); 99 (40).
xxiii. 464 (37-8).
xxiv. 459; 536 (15).
Luke.
i. 77(1). iv. 35(18).
x. 470(29-37); 304(32).
xxiv. 3 (24, 27); 3, 449, 481 (44).
John.
i. 304 (19). x. 3 (35).
xiv. 49 (26). xx. 49, 51 (31).
Acts.
iv. 304 (36). vii. 79 (22).
ix. 459 (27-30). xxi. 459 (10, 11).

Acts — continued.
xxvi. 103 (26).
xxvii. 459 (10, 21, 22).
Romans.
i. 3 (2). iii. 472 (6). v. 457 (20).
xi. 459 (23-4). xv. 49 (4).
1 Corinthians.
x. 123 (20, 21). xiii. 140 (3).
2 Corinthians.
iii. 3 (14); 179 (6). xii. 462 (1-4).

Ephesians.

iii. 36 (3, 9). Colossians.
i. 36 (26). 2 Tuessalonians.
ii. 459 (1-10).
Hebrews.
ix., x. 326. ix. 36, 305 (7 ff.)
x. 35 (1). xi. 110 (17-19).
2 Timothy.
iii. 3, 49 (16-17). 1 Peter.
ii. 35(6). 2 Peter.
i. 3(21). iii. 465(4)

1 John.

v. 51 (20).

Revelation.
i. 459 (1-3). ii. 35 (7).
xix. 33 (10V xxii. 35 (2).

Ill
Names and Subjects

(Dotted line indicates that intervening page* are included in reference*.)

Aaronic priesthood, 180 ff. , 504, 505.
Abraham, historicity of, see Patri
archs; character of, 108-9; sacri
fice of Isaac, 110, 475.
Addis, W. E., 54, 56, 68, 70, 74,
108, 122, 135-6, 153-4, 156, 161,
182, 204, 208, 210, 212, 216, 218,
220, 225, 230-1, 233, 279, 310,
336, 338, 346, 360, 352, 354, 357,
363, 503, 531.
Angel of Jehovah, 112-3.
Anthropomorphisms, 125.
Archaeology, discoveries in Assyria,
Babylonia, Egypt, Crete, Pales
tine, etc., 78 ff.; 396, 418 ff.,
532-3; at Gezer, 499-500; ancient
libraries, 397-8; relation to tra
ditions in Genesis, 80, 399 ff.
For details, see tabular Contents,
Chap. XI.
Ark of covenant, 137, 161 ff.
Astruo, 196.
Baethgen, F., 93, 133; on psalms,
435, 438-9, 449.
Baudissin, W. W. Graf, 26, 182,
299, 307, 313, 327, 505, 521.
Bennett, W. H., 57, 68, 97, 105,
206, 211, 214-5, 233, 242, 352,
367, 420, 426, 437, 493, 526.
Bible, organio unity of, 30, 31;
contrast with other sacred books,
31, 484-5 ; teleology in, 35 ff., 42,
61 ff. ; Christ the centre of, 50, 51.
Cf. Contents, Chap. II.
Bleek, J., 57, 73, 198-9, 201-2,
209, 217, 249-50, 260, 288, 302,
333, 341, 374, 381, 385, 388-9,
435, 437, 524, 528.
Von Bohlen, P., 17, 287, 374, 492,
517.

668

Book of Covenant, 80, 99, 152, 154,
176, 231, 247-8, 254, 268, 274,
276, 370-1, 376, 520.
Briggs, C. A., 539.
Bruce, A. B., 45, 470, 472, 475-6,
539.
Brugsch, H. K., 397, 417, 423, 425,
533.
Budde, K., on Yahweh, 120; on
decalogue, 120, 128; on Kenite
origin of Yahweh worship, 129 ff. ;
on Exodus, 493: 102, 119, 126-7,
131, 133, 135, 144, 213, 215, 226,
232, 240-1, 347, 350, 379, 382,
404, 409, 485, 488, 609.
Budge, E. A. W., 402, 496.
Canon, Jewish, 3, 481 ff.; law,
370 ff.; psalms, 448 ff.
Carpenter, J. E., 56, 98, 118, 162,
154, 161, 207-8, 209-12, 214-6,
238, 261, 268, 277, 309-10, 334,
336, 347-8, 352, 360. See Oxford
Hexateuch.
Cave, A., 197...9, 217, 335, 340, 527.
Cheyne, T. K., 2, 5, 17, 66, 68-9,
127, 195, 258, 286, 405, 407, 429,
434-5, 437-8, 440, 442, 446,
448-9, 509, 513-4, 527, 531, 536.
Christ and O.T., 4, 38, 523.
Chronicles, Books of, assaults on,
68, 388, 535; credibility of,
389-91, 426-7.
Code of Hammurabi, 79, 115, 128,
154, 263, 410.
Colenso, J. W., influence of, 67,
362; critical positions, 74, 156,
198-9, 200, 202, 218, 334-5,
340-1, 343, 352-4, 373-4; his
arithmetical objections, 102,
362 ff., 622-3: 54, 104, 127, 219,

INDEXES

557

225, 227, 237, 250, 254-5, 258,
277, 286, 309, 492, 613.
Conder, C. R., 422, 424, 525.
Cook, F. C, 415, 421-2, 494, 533.
Cornill, C. H., 88, 213-4, 252, 258,
310, 490, 608, 516.
Covenant, Mosaic, 100, 491.
Criticism, Higher, difficulties arising
from, 5 ff. ; nature and legitimacy
of, 9, 10 ; crucial points in, 25 ff. ;
dependence on presuppositions,
6, 14, 85 ff. ; rationalistic " set "
of, 17, 195; the name, 197; stadia
in development of, 196 ff. ;
schools of critics, 7, 8, 65, 69,
195; fault of method, 119 ff.;
extravagances in, 488-9; self-
confidence of critics, 507-8;
hypotheses in, 526. See Well
hausen, Kuenen, Graf, etc.
Cullen, J., 510.
Daniel, Book of, 428, 458, 481-2,
534, 636.
Davidson, A. B., on prophecy, 33,
459, 461-2; on Israel under
Judges, 131, 383; on Ezekiel,
308, 519: 8, 84, 93, 113, 121,
126, 128, 136-7, 146, 313, 322,
437, 451-2, 454, 457-8, 461-2.
Davidson, S., 381, 389-90.
Decalogue, 120, 128, 141, 152 ff.,
503.
Deism, 17, 20, 58, 362, 466.
Delitzsch, F., on decalogue, 152-3 ;
on tabernacle, 166, 173; on
early Elohistio writing, 54, 207,
379-80; on Levites, 297 ff., 304,
317 ; on Levitical laws, 309,
313-14; on law of king, 515;
on psalms, 435-8, 447-8; on
prophecy, 464: 2, 8, 25, 80, 93,
121, 127, 182, 186, 194, 204, 235,
237, 253-4, 260, 263-5, 269, 272,
276, 290, 297, 299, 307-8, 323-5,
339, 349, 350, 357, 372-3, 379,
411, 413, 428, 505, 607.
Delitzsch, Fried., 397, 404, 408-9.
Deuteronomy, unity and style of,
251 ff., 511-2; decomposition of,
250, 252, 610-1; theory of
pious fraud, 258 ff., 513-4; medi
ating views of, 260-1, 264 ff.;
Mosaic claim of, 264 ff.; unsuit
ability to Josiah's age, 266 ff.,
615; unity of sanctuary, 173 ff.,

272-3; priests and Levites, 184ff.,
191-2; relation to older laws,
272, 311 ff. ; alleged discrepancies
in laws and history, 273 ff. For
details, see Contents, Chaps.
VI. and VIII.
Deutsch, E., 524.
De Wette, W. M. L., 17, 123, 197,
198, 199, 236, 249-50, 254, 260,
263, 266, 286-7, 327, 388, 390.
Dillmann, A., on religion of Israel,
¦ 33; on redemptive plan in O.T.,
62; on religious ideas of patri
archs, 93-4 ; on written laws, 160 ;
on early Levitical laws, 309, 313,
328 ; on image - worship, 501 ;
critical theory of, 327, 521 : 8, 26,
43, 59, 65-6, 69, 71, 73, 113, 123,
136, 138, 144, 161, 165, 169,
181-2, 186-8, 202, 204-6, 208-9,
211, 217-18, 220-1, 225, 227,
229, 232, 238, 253-4, 259, 263,
272, 276, 279, 281, 299, 302, 305,
307, 317, 325, 333, 336, 338, 340,
346, 349-50, 356-7, 371, 374,
389-90, 408, 411, 413,435, 501-2,
520, 527.
Divine names, 113-4; Jehovah
(Yahweh), 66, 114, 224-5, 495,
497; usage in Pentateuch, 66,
196 ff., 221 ff., 336.
Driver, S. R., on canon, 481 ff. ; on
patriarchs, 59, 414 ff. ; on sobriety
of Genesis, 105-6; on dates of
J and E, 66-7; on style of J
and E, 219, 230; on style of
D, 253 ff . ; on priests and Levites,
191-2; on pre-exilian usage
and law, 272, 300ff., 311 ff.;
on Law of Holiness, 309 ; on
discrepancies, etc., 366-7, 493-4 ;
on Hebrew writing, 375, 525 ; on
psalms, 435, 535 ; on Daniel,
536 ff.: 8, 26, 37, 57, 60, 62, 69,
72-5, 101-2, 111, 114-5, 161,
164, 171, 176, 187, 205, 211, 213,
215-6, 218, 221-4, 228-33,
252-6, 259-60, 262-4, 269-70,
274, 277, 281, 282, 306-13, 315,
316, 336, 341, 349, 360, 362, 373,
379, 382, 384-7, 402-4, 406-7,
409, 412, 421, 426, 430, 440, 448,
458, 475, 483, 498, 505, 609, 515,
620, 527-8, 538.
Duhm, B., 13, 21, 68, 133, 139,
159, 266, 286, 324, 434-5.

558

INDEXES

Eiohhobn, J. G., 21, 17, 197.
Ewald, G. H. A., 10, 54, 74, 88,
93, 95, 123, 198, 260, 287, 435,
447, 505, 618.
Exodus, fundamental fact in Israel's
history, 1005.; witness of national
consciousness to, 38, 87, 100 ff.;
difficulties regarding, 364 ff. ;
critical theories of, 103, 492-3;
date of, 104, 422 ff.
Ezekiel, importance of, in criticism,
25, 306 ; relation to earlier laws,
306 ff., 519 ; degradation of priests
in, 181, 184, 315 ff., 520. See
Contents, Chap. IX.
Ezra, introduction of the law by,
290 ff. ; critical views on, 66, 291,
295. See Contents, Chap. IX.
Fairbairn, A. M., 496.
Flint, R., 460.
Genesis, Book of, credibility of,
105 ff.; contrast with Exodus,
106, 115; P as "framework"
in, 24, 65, 201, 215, 340 ff., 372;
alleged mirroring of later events,
74, 111-2, 209. 371-2; early date
of, 372 ff.
George, J. F. L., 25, 160, 287-8, 517.
Gesenius, W., 10, 190, 195, 435, 451.
Giesebrecht, F., on prophecy, 432,
462, 465-6, 538 ; on covenant, 491.
Gladstone, W. E., 447, 512.
Graf, K. H., place in criticism, 160,
199 ff.; on Deut., 248-9; on
" circle" of criticism, 194; views
on history and laws, 200, 334-5 ;
on independence of P, 201, 334,
341: 6, 17, 25-6, 56, 95, 164-6,
171-2, 177, 182, 202, 204, 251-2,
271, 277, 287-8, 301, 307-9,
316, 326, 328, 358, 373, 388, 390,
617.
Gray, G. B., 57, 169, 248, 469, 508.
Green, W. H., 17, 150, 175, 180,
224, 232-3, 263, 269, 337, 603-4,
514.
Gunkel, H., on date of patriarchal
traditions, 74, 111-2, 124, 209;
on critical treatment of prophets,
96; theory of patriarchal history,
112, 494; on creation and flood
stories, eto., 403—11; on mono-
theism of Israel, 118, 124; on
N.T., 478: 13, 21, 61, 69, 70-1,

126, 212, 218, 226, 347, 397, 401,
486, 509.
Hebrew text, 527-8.
Hengstenberg, E. W., 224, 235,
263, 367, 516, 623; his school,
201, 224, 263, 388-90 (Keil), 435.
Hexateuch, the name, 65, 198;
discussions regarding, 213—6.
See J and E, P, Joshua, eto.
High places, 178-80, 267, 290.
Hilprecht, H. V., 394, 398-9, 425.
History, revelation in facts of, 45,
485-6. See Israel.
Hommel, F., 60, 104, 110, 209, 375,
394, 397, 401, 408-12, 421-4,
497, 525, 530.
Van Hoonacker, A., 163-4, 168,
176, 182-6, 212, 273, 275, 317,
364, 388-9, 505, 520.
Hupfeld, H., 57, 198 ff., 202, 217,
218-19, 233-4, 351, 435.
Image-worship in Israel, 40, 122,
141 ff.; prophets and calf- worship,
145 ff. See Contents, Chap. Y.
Inspiration, tests of, 49-50; re
lation to its materials, 486-7.
Israel, history of: critical view
of, 56 ff., 60, 86-7; teleologioal
character of, 35 ff., 42 ff., 61 ff.;
trustworthiness of, see Contents,
Chaps. HI., IV.
Religion of: comparison with
other religions, 11, 39ff., 134;
critical theory of pre-prophetic re
ligion, 86, 126, 133 ff.; idea of God
in, 40ff., 47, 113ff., 123ff., 133;
moral character of, 43 ff.; need
of supernatural factor for ex-
S laming, 10, 44 ff. See tabular
ontents, Chaps. II. to VI.
Jehovah (Yahweh), 66. See Divine
Johns, C.' H. W., 115, 184, 410.
Joshua, Book of, relation to Penta
teuch, 213 ff.; Are J and E
present? 214 ff.; peculiarities of
P in, 315 ff.; historicity of, 57,
239 ff., 379.
Judges, Book of, religious character
of, 131, 143, 384; unity of Israel
in, 383 ff. ; exaggeration of
numbers in, 385; date, 385.

INDEXES

559

J and E documents in critical
theory, 41, 65-6 ; dates of, 66-7,
73-4, 112, 371; parallelism of,
66, 71, 218; relations to P, 107,
201-2, 345, 372; pre-prophetio,
67 ff., 97 ; origin and extent,
66, 70, 73, 208 ff.; stylistio
features, 66, 219, 230 ff.; Are
they two or one? 199, 208, 216 ff. ;
interrelations, 219, 234 ff.; with
P, 346 ff. ; divine names in, 221 ff. ;
alleged " duplicates " in, 236 ff.,
361 ff. See tabular Contents,
Chap. VII.
Kautzsch, E., on value of O.T.,
61-2, 400, 432, 454-5 ; on literature
of O.T., 76-7, 374; on legis
lation of Moses, 99; on Exodus,
102, 491; on early religion of
Israel, 121, 126, 128, 131, 134 ff.;
on image - worship, 153; on
priestly law, 292, 308; on de
gradation of priests, 318; on
Book of Judges, 382; on Books
of Samuel, 386-7; on oovenant
with Israel, 491: 68, 78, 84,
126, 128, 135, 137, 154, 182,
209-12, 218-19, 222, 225, 260,
262, 316, 332, 340-1, 350, 360,
379, 519, 531.
Kennedy, A. R. S., 137, 161, 394.
Kirkpatriok, A. F., 32, 54, 93,
227-8, 324, 381-8, 435-6, 439,
448, 449, 450.
Kittel, R., on recent discoveries,
79, 632-3; on origin of early
traditions, 408, 530; on written
law, 302 ; theory of priestly law,
327, 621: 8, 59, 66, 72, 122, 129,
131, 141, 153-4, 186, 203-4, 209,
211, 213-15, 253, 259-60, 279,
281, 295, 299, 304, 307, 313, 322,
357, 404, 406, 409-11, 416, 419,
605.
Klostermann, A., on divine names,
227-9; critical theory of, 218,
228-9, 345, 522: 72, 74, 93-4,
150, 201, 204, 219-20, 260,
308-9, 332, 388-9, 391, 413, 505.
Kohler, A., 8, 74, 88, 140, 204,
240, 349, 354, 357-8, 362, 368,
385, 422.
Konig, F. E., on theory of per-
ionifications, 91, 490; on Book of
Joshua, 240-2; on Book of

Judges, 382-5, 528; on Baby
lonian monotheism, 409: 8, 59,
74, 76, 88, 93, 98, 123, 126, 131,
138-9, 142-3, 189, 204, 213,
228, 260, 316, 350, 413.
Kuenen, A., anti-supernaturalism
of, 12 ff., 453; on propheoy, IB,
13, 453, 455-6, 538; early views of,
617-8; relations with Graf,
200-1, 334-5; on patriarchs as
personifications, 60, 88 ff.; on
early religion of Israel, 93, 126 ff.;
on ark of covenant, 1 61 ff. ; on
Deut., 252, 258-9, 261-2, 613;
on prophets and saorifice, 158;
on use of divine names, 222-3:
4, 17, 21, 22, 25, 35, 40, 47, 56-7,
59, 61, 66, 68, 72, 87, 91, 96,
98, 104, 111, 115, 121-3, 125,
128, 130, 137, 139-146, 164,
156, 172, 181, 183, 194, 202-6,
209-13, 216, 220-22, 230-2,
236, 266-7, 269, 274, 276,
287-9, 291-2, 295, 302, 305,
307, 310, 313, 316, 322, 327,
338-9, 340-8, 350-2, 364,
360, 362-3, 367, 371, 374, 434,
451-2, 459, 492, 497, 608, 531,
535, 538.
Ladd, G. T., 13, 45, 49, 60, 80,
118, 264, 539.
Law of Holiness, 160, 308 ff., 313,
328, 376. See P Writing.
Levites, 163; in Deut., 184 ff., 191-
2; silence regarding, 304; in
Ezekiel, 316 ff., 520; at return,
297-9. See Priesthood.
Lohr, M, 381, 628.
Macalister, A., 499.
McFadyen, J. E., 62, 68, 200, 212,
233, 237, 358, 509.
Maine, H. S., 92.
Margoliouth, D. S., 440, 444, 447.
Maurice, F. D., 442, 445.
" Modern " view of Bible and re
ligion, 12 ff.
Monotheism, fundamental in re
ligion of Israel, 40 ff., 47, 93 ff.,
123 ff.; pervades O.T., 41, 124 ff.;
implied in decalogue, 120, 128;
denial of, by critics, 47, 136 ff.;
Wellhausen's theory of, 127-8;
not the creation of prophets, 68,
133; not Babylonian, 118, 126,

56b

INDEXES

403-4, 408-9; substratum of, in
historical religions, 128, 409,
496-7.
Moore, G. F., 121, 382, 384-5.
Moral difficulties of O.T., 465 ff.,
539. See tabular Contents, Chap.
XII.
Moses, personality of, 38, 98 ff.,
116; place in tradition as legis
lator, 98 ff., 152 ff.; critical mini
mising of witness to, 98, 152,
286.
Mozley, J. B., 84, 110, 472, 474»6.
Mythology, absence of, in O.T.,
39, 485-6.
New Testament fulfils the Old,
32 ff., 459-60, 477; stands or
falls with the Old, 7, 13, 406,
477-80.
Noldeke, T., 26, 57, 67, 73, 204,
307, 309, 327, 351, 411.
Oehler, G. F., 113, 114, 451.
Oettli, S., 8, 59, 93, 204, 253, 260,
264, 268-9, 272, 274, 277, 313-
14, 357, 384, 401, 406, 408-9,
510-1, 531.
Von Orelli, C, 8, 33, 37, 235, 324,
428, 452, 457.
Ottley, R. L., 2, 18, 37, 42, 114,
381, 485, 539.
Oxford "Hexateuch," 98, 162,
176, 182, 192, 201, 205-6, 220,
239, 250, 353-4, 358-9, 361, 407,
609. See Carpenter.
Patriarchs, critical denial of his
toricity of, 57, 59-60, 94ff„ 494;
theory of personifications, 60,
88 ff.; trustworthiness of tradi
tion, 67 ff. ; witness of national
, consciousness, 91 ff.; of prophets,
94 ff.; credibility of narratives,
104 ff; unity of picture of, 107-8;
historicity of Abraham, 89-90,
108; witness of archaeology, 80,
90, 409 ff.; religion of, 60, 93-4,
125 ff., 134 ff., 142, 156. See
tabular Contents, Chaps. III.-
VI., XI.
Pentateuch, critical theory of,
65 ff . ; crucial points in theory,
25-6; stages in critical develop
ment, 196 ff., 333 ff.; difficulties
of theory, 202 ff., 346 ff.; Mosaic

basis of, 80-1, 369 ff. See J and E,
Priestly Writing, Deuteronomy,
and tabular Contents, Chaps.
VII.-X.
Perowne, J. J. S., 439, 440, 448.
Petrie, W. M. Flinders, 418, 421-
23 425 429.
Pinches, Th., 401, 403, 409, 420,
425, 427, 429, 430, 533.
Priesthood in Israel, Levitical, 162-
3, 181, 183-5; Aaronio, 180 ff.,
504-5; high priest, 181-3, 311;
priests and Levites, 184 ff., 191-
2, 274; degradation of priests
in Ezekiel, 184, 316 ff.; priests
and Levites at return, 297-9;
Colenso on duties of, 364, 522-3;
in Chronicles, 388. See tabular
Contents, Chaps. VI., IX., X.
Progressiveness of Revelation, 33-
4, 465 ff. See Contents, Chap.
XII.
Prophecy, nature of O.T., 452 ff.;
denial of supernatural element
in, 12-3, 453, 538; greatness
of, 432; prediction in, 455 ff.;
canons of interpretation of,
460 ff. ; Messianic prophecy, 32-5,
459-60. See Contents, Chap. XII.
Prophets and calf- worship, 145-7;
relation to ritual, 155 ff., 323 ff.;
Wellhausen on, 64, 68, 70.
Psalms, Book of, divisions of
Psalter, 197; divine names in,
277 ff. ; theory of post-exilian
origin, 434 ff.; proofs of pre-
exilian psalms and psalmody,
438 ff., 450; David as psalmist,
440 ff.; Davidic psalms, 446-7;
collection of psalms and place
in Canon, 448 ff. See tabular
Contents, Chap. XII.
P Writing in critical theory,
older views, 74, 199; theory of
exilian or post-exilian origin,
25, 65, 199 ff., 287 ff., 333 ff.;
age of, 54, 207, 372, 379-80.
The Code .• Graf-Wellhausen
theory of, 288 ff.; difficulties of
theory, 292 ff. ; pre-exilian usage,
300 ff. ; proof of earlier existence
of laws, 305 ff.; institutions of,
315 ff.; mediating theories of,
326 ff.; Mosaic origin, 328.
The document : distinct from
JE, 335-6; vocabulary and

INDEXES

56i

style, 66, 336 ff. ; parallel to
JE, 26, 65, 71, 107, 344-5;
presupposes JE, 26, 65, 156,
340, 347-8, 355, 360-2; " frame
work" to Genesis, 24, 65, 201,
215, 340 ff., 372; plaoe in middle
books and Joshua, 215-6, 340-
1 ; not an independent document,
23-4, 201, 334-5, 341 ff.; inter
relations with JE, 346 ff.; his
torical credibility of, 359 ff. ;
alleged silence on patriarchal
sacrifice, 156, 348, 360. See
tabular Contents, Chaps. VII.,
IX, X.
Renouf, P. le Page, 128, 496.
Reuss, E., teacher of Graf, 200,
287: 56, 67, 209, 241, 258, 272,
288, 307, 324, 347, 374, 434-5,
438, 440, 513, 535.
Revelation, ambiguity in term,
21 ; claim of O.T. religion to
an origin in, 20, 44 ff. ; unique
ness of claim, 46 ff. "
Riehm, E., 8, 34, 66, 73, 153-4,
200, 204, 260, 266, 268, 293-4,
313, 385, 447, 449, 452, 518.
Robertson, J., on history and
religion, 8, 40, 62, 81, 88, 90,
111, 130, 155, 176, 180, 200,
264, 293, 301, 324, 383, 390;
on psalms, 435, 438-9, 446, 448,
450: 486, 489.
Ryle, H. E., 26, 309, 483, 507-8,
519, 624.
Sacrifice, pre-Mosaic, 156, 158,
360 ; Mosaic institution, 155 ff. ;
law of Ex. xx. 24, 175 ff.; in
Samuel's time, 178-9; in Deut.,
173-4, 177-8,273, 314; prophets
and, 155 ff., 324-5; -Levitical
law unique, 325-6, 518.
Samaritan Pentateuch, 370, 524.
Samuel, at Shiloh, 172-3, 189;
his sacrifices, 178-9; picture
of, in history, 387 ; founder of
prophetic guilds, 451.
Sayce, A. H., 79, 397, 404, 409,
412, 414-17, 420-1, 424-5, 427-8,
430, 525, 532-3.
"Schools" of J, E, D, P, in
Hexateuch, 206 ff., 213, 250, 252,
335, 509. See Contents, Chap.
VII. 36

Schrader, E., 67, 73, 202, 204,
209, 211, 213, 307, 400, 404,
406-7, 416, 427, 608.
Schultz, H., 36, 45, 67, 67, 73,
113-4, 133, 138, 141, 143-4,
434, 497, 518.
Seeley, J. R., 470, 476.
Smend, R., 13, 113, 153, 158-9,
257, 306, 325.
Smith, G. A., on Christ and O.T.,
3 ; on revelation in Israel, 8, 10 ;
on Semitic religions, 41; on
P element in Joshua, 215; on
Isaiah, 437, 536.
Smith, H. P., on patriarchs, 89,
94 ff.; on ark, 137, 163; on
Samuel, 101 ; on Books of Samuel,
386-7 ; on brazen serpent, 143,
600-1; on Ezra, 56, 291, 295;
on David, 535: 66, 58, 60-1,
88, 124-5, 141, 182, 213, 257,
427, 531.
Smith, J., 88.
Smith, W. R., on Wellhausen
criticism, 56-7, 200; on revela
tion, 19 ff., 45; on patriarchal
history, 97 ; on Sinai tic legisla
tion, 100; on Jehovah as tribal
god, 132; on sacred pillars, 122,
138; on tree- worship, 136; on
totemism, 139; totem theory of
sacrifice, 498-9; on Samuel, 172,
178-9, 189-90; on prophets and
sacrifice, 156-7 ; on prophets and
calf -worship, 145-6; on Deut.,
184, 257, 259-60, 281, 511-2;
on origin of Priestly Code, 291 ;
on psalms, 228, 435-6, 439-40,
448, 450: 15, 28, 126, 138, 141-2,
152, 177, 247, 296, 316-7, 504,
524, 527.
Stade, B., on Israel in Egypt,
66, 492; on the patriarchs, 91;
on presence and power of Yahweh,
130; on early religion of Israel,
136 ff.: 4, 13, 17, 64, 66, 68, 73,
91, 119, 122, 126-7, 132-3,
137, 139, 143, 145, 203, 242,
257-8, 324, 434, 486, 631,
635.
Steuernagel, C, 214, 284.
Strack, H. L., 8, 59, 108, 109, 212,
232, 280, 384-5.
Superstitions, alleged, in Israel:
fetishism, animism, warship of
ancestors, totemism, etc., 39,

562

INDEXES

133 ff. See tabular Contents,
Chap. V.
Swete, H. B., 528.
Tabernacle, critical theory of,
160, 164-5, 289; in JE and P,
167 ff. ; evidence of harmony,
168 ff. ; historicity of, 170 -3;
in Code, 289, 297; Colenso on,
363^1, 522.
Tel el-Amarna letters, 79, 81, 124,
242, 420, 423-4, 500, 525.
Thatcher, G. W., 121, 143, 382-4.
Tomkins, H. G., 413, 417, 494.
Vatke, W., 6, 8, 13, 17, 56, 121,
123, 139, 286-7, 306, 517.
Watson, F., on Genesis, 115.
Wellhausen, J., relation to pre
decessors, 6, 13, 200; influence
of, 17, 66, 200, 291, 327; on
patriarchs, 88 ff., 95 ff., 109, 135;
on early religion of Israel, 126,
129 ff. ; ideas of world and human
ity, 127; on Exodus, 103, 493;
on decalogue, 128, 141; on
sacrifice, 157; on tabernacle,
165, 172; on Deut., 249 ff., 252,
296; on unity of sanctuary,
160, 174 ff., 273; on priesthood,

181 ff., 316, 504-5; on pre-exilian
cultus, 159, 303; on parallel
ism of J and E, 218 ; on paral
lelism of P with JE, 65, 71,
107, 344-5; on JE and P in
Joshua, 214 ff. ; on Priestly Code,
288 ff. ; on Ezekiel and law, 25,
316; on passover, 301, 320 ff.;
on psalms, 434-5; on N.T.,
478: 4, 14-5, 57-8, 61, 63-4,
66, 68, 70, 74-6, 121, i23-4,
132, 145, 151-6, 161, 166-7,
171, 177, 190, 204-5, 220, 222,
230-3, 238, 257-8, 267, 270-1,
276, 281, 290, 292-8, 300,
302, 305-8, 311, 321-2, 326-8,
332-5, 336, 338, 340-2, 347-8,
350, 356-8, 361-2, 372, 379,
388, 405, 411, 440, 455-6, 485
497, 507-8, 513, 631, 635.
Westphal, A., 8, 72, 198, 203, 211,
213, 231, 253, 260, 274, 276, 336.
Wilson, R. D., 429, 634.
Winckler, H., 59, 90, 397, 406,
409, 420, 424, 488.
Woods, F. H., 57, 106, 204, 483.
Writing, Hebrew, 80-1, 263, 265-6,
374-5, 525.
Zockler, 0.( on Chroniolei, 389-

THE BROSS LECTURES, 1904

THE BIBLE
Its Origin and Nature
BY THE REVEREND
MARCUS DODS, D.D.
Professor of Exegetical Theology
in New College, Edinburgh
Z2mo. $1.00 net
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CONTENTS
The Bible and Other Sacred Books
The Canon of Scripture
Revelation
Inspiration
Infallibility
The Trustworthiness of the Gospels
The Miraculous Element in the Gospels

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THE BIBLE : Its Origin and Nature

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